I didn't want to hijack HomeingPigeon's thread regarding his first black and white conversion, so I'm starting one of my own.
Lovesong recommended that we read http://www.blackandwhitedigital.com/, and I did so quickly, but I didn't try the methods used on that website. They required Photoshop, and just wanted to try things out in Lightroom. Also, I didn't quite know how to change between the "luminosity" and "colour altering" conversion methods in Lightroom.
If ANYONE can comment on the b&w conversion of this photo, and how I could have done it different, that would be great. Forget the quality of the actual photography technique and such.
What I did was:
1. Adjusted brightness, and upped the exposure slightly.
2. Fiddled with the tone curve, and thought that a steeper curve (more contrast) looked better, but I also shifted the slider that dictates the central point of the tone curve (don't know what it's called) slightly to the right/lighter end of the curve to make the ground darker. I don't know if it made much of a difference, but anyway...
3. Played around with the greyscale mix to make the mouse and snake look better (in my eyes). However, I honestly had no idea what I was doing.
4. Added vignetting.
Photo taken with Nikon D50 and Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 800, f1.4 setting, 1/40th second, in a dark section of the science museum.
It was a terrarium (aquarium) display with fake animals, so I had to shoot through the glass of the terrarium. I was totally limited in the way I could frame the shot because the mouse was at the wall of the terrarium, and I obviously didn't want to include the sides of the terrarium into the photo. I would have included a bit more of the mouse, and shot at f/2.8 if I had more time (to get the mouse a bit more focused, but yet still OOF). I wasn't planning to take any interesting photos while on vacation with 3 friends.....at a museum.
Lovesong recommended that we read http://www.blackandwhitedigital.com/, and I did so quickly, but I didn't try the methods used on that website. They required Photoshop, and just wanted to try things out in Lightroom. Also, I didn't quite know how to change between the "luminosity" and "colour altering" conversion methods in Lightroom.
If ANYONE can comment on the b&w conversion of this photo, and how I could have done it different, that would be great. Forget the quality of the actual photography technique and such.
What I did was:
1. Adjusted brightness, and upped the exposure slightly.
2. Fiddled with the tone curve, and thought that a steeper curve (more contrast) looked better, but I also shifted the slider that dictates the central point of the tone curve (don't know what it's called) slightly to the right/lighter end of the curve to make the ground darker. I don't know if it made much of a difference, but anyway...
3. Played around with the greyscale mix to make the mouse and snake look better (in my eyes). However, I honestly had no idea what I was doing.
4. Added vignetting.
Photo taken with Nikon D50 and Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 800, f1.4 setting, 1/40th second, in a dark section of the science museum.
It was a terrarium (aquarium) display with fake animals, so I had to shoot through the glass of the terrarium. I was totally limited in the way I could frame the shot because the mouse was at the wall of the terrarium, and I obviously didn't want to include the sides of the terrarium into the photo.
I would have included a bit more of the mouse, and shot at f/2.8 if I had more time (to get the mouse a bit more focused, but yet still OOF). I wasn't planning to take any interesting photos while on vacation with 3 friends.....at a museum.
