This was taken on my trip to WV, it was really interesting, one side of the mountain looked almost untouched by fall, the other was full of color. This was taken on the less colorful side which was part of the reason for processing it in B and W, which I very rarely do.
Specific Feedback Requested
Is the ridge too bright? Does the light cloud above the ridge pull the eye too much?
With the hill this bright, the cloud is more of an understudy. You could play in the color gray value sliders to see if you can get more separation in what’s left of the hill color or use a luminosity mask to massage the brightness values. The shapes are so great here - dynamic and eye-catching. I really like the way there is a gap between the land and the clouds - it has a nice sinuous shape. The hill seems to point into it. Since the hill and that shape seem to hold the most interest, I’d consider a narrower crop - 16:9 or 16:10 sort of range.
I’m going to be honest…I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, could you rephrase it possibly? I agree with the 16x9, could pull some of the brighter bit away from the top. That or I could maybe try adding some contrast or darkening down part of the top 1/2 of that section.
Thanks for checking it out, I appreciate the feedback. I’ve generally avoided processing in black and white because color is enough for me to learn right now, but this makes me feel like I’m not too far off.
I also thought about lifting the blacks a bit in the third layer, to show some more separation between the three parts. Not sure if that would help…
Hi David … I really like this image. It was a good call to convert it to b&w, reducing the visual complexity to the contrasting tones and shapes, which I think enhances the image. I have a couple of suggestions/ideas. 1) I would make a narrower crop, removing enough of the LH edge so you can’t see the ridge line through the mist. I find that it’s pulling my eye out of the frame, and 2) I would reduce the brightness of the RH bright slope just a little to improve the balance of the image.
Sorry about that. Sometimes photography has its own language and it can be like speaking in tongues. I’m talking about two things - the color values in the photo and the luminosity values. They are separate things and can be adjusted independently. Even when you reduce the saturation and vibrance sliders to 0, or hit the B&W key in Lightroom or another RAW editor, the color values remain. You have just hidden them from view. Now only the luminosity values are visible. Both are important to make the image its best.
Normally the HSL (Color) Panel in Lr looks like this -
When you convert to B&W it looks like this -
In B&W mode you can use the sliders to change the gray value of each color - basically changing its intensity in the photo - how bright or dark its gray value will appear. Doing that can have a huge effect on your image and help you emphasize or deemphasize aspects. One of the things I often do is see if I can get yellow and orange to look different by pushing their gray value sliders in different directions. You can automatically darken a sky by lowering the luminosity value of blue as a whole.
Making those kinds of changes can alter the whole look of a picture. For example - increasing green and yellow to nearly white mimics infrared film. It’s a lot of fun and should definitely be part of any monochrome conversion you do.
There are more things that can work into the process, but I’ll leave it here.
I couldn’t make changes with the Color Panel because your image has no color information to work with and I got this error in Photoshop -
There is no color space in your image as you uploaded it to NPN.
As to Luminosity masking - I use the TK8 combo panels, one of which is the Multi Mask panel. It makes changing specific luminosity values in your photo very easy, but it’s got its own pretty steep learning curve and I’m only part way up it. A really great tool though and worth the brain ache it gives you sometimes. You can also do some of this in Lightroom now, but it isn’t quite as precise although very usable.
Phew. Sorry to be so long winded. This stuff isn’t as complex as it seems, but it sure takes a lot to explain!
@Kris_Smith that is interesting regarding the color space. I export using a tool from Greg Benz. I will have to look into it further.
I did some work in the first version with the B+W section as I converted it in LR. I guess my question was more along the lines of what do you suggest I do with those tools? Try to tone down the highlights a bit using it? Create some difference or separation between the yellows and greens?
In the re-edit I tried to pull down from the top left corner to keep the aspect ratio but remove some of the less interesting top part of the sky, pull a little more attention toward the interesting parts of the frame as suggested by you and @Jon_Norris
The point is to experiment and see what suits the image best. Without a color information file, I couldn’t see what effects playing with the sliders had, so I don’t know what kinds of colors you have to work with. It usually takes me a few passes with the B&W panel until I have something that I like.
Wonderful image and a good subject for B/W. I like the original crop because of the detail in the fog at the left edge of the frame.
Nik Color Efex Detail Extractor or just a curve could bring out more detail in the fog, which you might want to mask off the trees. Here is a quick example – I brushed it off the bottom of the trees with a large soft-edged 50% opacity black brush. It brought out noise which you would want to go back and deal with in the base image, possibly even from the raw stage. I think I should have added a subtle darker gradient from the top of a masked curves to brighten the center area of the fog more.
About the missing profile – if you have LR that’s all you need to export. Any work done in PS should come back into the original LR filmstrip/folder. From the Library module, do File > Export and set the preferences for the size and JPEG quality you want here. LR will automatically convert to and tag/embed the profile you specify, which should be sRGB. Then save it as a preference for future use.
Thank you for the suggestion @Diane_Miller . I messed about with it a bit and couldn’t help but continually notice the artifacts that were being formed. I’m wondering if I could dodge and burn a bit and get a similar effect.
