Help Me - Gothenburg Cathedral + Rework

Image Critiques Everything Else Critiques
1

Help Me - Gothenburg Cathedral
Help Me - Gothenburg Cathedral1900×2701 1.09 MB

Original (cropped the same) unedited jpeg color version (below).

DSC03332 Street Lady at Front of Gothenburg Cathedral Church - Needing Heart Surgery - Gothenburg Sweden - Unedited Color
DSC03332 Street Lady at Front of Gothenburg Cathedral Church - Needing Heart Surgery - Gothenburg Sweden - Unedited Color1900×2701 1010 KB

Rework Version with Darker Letters as per David Bostock’s suggestion on how to blend masks in B&W (Thanks David!)

DSC03332 Street Lady at Front of Gothenburg Cathedral Church - Needing Heart Surgery - Gothenburg Sweden - Rework with Darker Letters v2
DSC03332 Street Lady at Front of Gothenburg Cathedral Church - Needing Heart Surgery - Gothenburg Sweden - Rework with Darker Letters v21900×2701 1.08 MB

At the top of the cardboard sign, it reads “Help Me”

This is from our self guided tour of Gothenburg, Sweden.
We came across the Gothenburg Cathedral where this sweet lady was sitting on her bean bag at the front door asking for help with funding for heart surgery.
I was compelled to capture an image of her at this moment, situations like this always spark an emotion for myself and my wife, we did pitch in what we could.

Most of the images from that trip were of people and architecture, I enjoy photographing and studying old architecture as well as various cultures.

I am currently on a quest to learn how to recognize images that might be better portrayed in B&W, as well as how they should be processed.
I ran into a problem with this one in particular, the writing on the cardboard sign is red and when I adjusted the red slider in the B&W mask in Ps, the lettering on the sign disappeared (when I adjust the red slider to make the face look right).
Then I decided to do the conversion in ACR, there were a few additional useful sliders in the Calibration Panel that helped, but it was still a compromise. I couldn’t get the red letters to stand out the way I wanted them to.

I added some vignetting to put more emphasis on the lady with her sign and donation cup.

The image was cropped slightly from the bottom and top but the sides are original.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

When I adjusted the red on her face in the B&W image, the red letters on the cardboard nearly disappeared in ACR but I was able to recover some of it as shown, is there a way to make those adjustments separately so I can bring more emphasis to the letters but leave her face as shown?

I purposely added a little film grain to the B&W version, for now, I just like it that way with B&W images but that may change at some point.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Technical Details

Sony a6000, 18-105 at 75mm (117mm equivalent in 35mm), 1/250s, ISO 200, Ps, ACR, Conversion ultimately done in ACR.

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Merv, you certainly picked a great candidate image for conversion to B&W. In my view it’s even more powerful with the color taken out. I think the sign and lettering look fine. The “Help Me” wasn’t all that definitive in the color one, and it looks like a fine conversion there too. If you want to work on the sign separately to get the most out of the letters, I think you’d have to create a layer copy of the color version, mask out everything but the sign and then convert it to B&W with the sliders the way you want them. Or something like that…

Thank you for the back story too. It’s helpful to cultivate the emotion in the image. Your processing highlighted the careworn face of the woman. Nice touch.

I think you have done a wonderful job with this conversion, Merv. Congratulations.

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David, You’re a genius!
That sure did save me a bunch of head scratching!

That worked great, I wanted the letters to be more noticeable since it’s such a big part of the story.

There are quite a few images from my archives that stand out as B&W candidates similar to this one.

Yeah, the story is mainly in her face, the rest of the scene supports the story well but the face has the most impact in my view. I was hoping I did her justice in that regard.

I completely agree.

I’m starting to get my mind wrapped around the B&W genre, I still have a ways to go though so I may be posting more examples and more questions as they pop up.

I posted the rework at the top.

Thank you so much for the encouraging kind words and thank you very, very much for the tip on how to get what I wanted!!
I really appreciate it! :slight_smile:

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Merv, that repost really works well. Glad I could help a bit.

B&W is what I grew up with, so for me it’s almost more natural than color. I think you’re on the start of a fun journey. I look forward to seeing more and I’ll be happy to help in anyway I can.

Cheers,
David