Which B&W is best?

Thanks

I started by doing some noise reduction. Converted to B&W with Alien Skin Exposure. Increased lighter areas with curves to add contrast. Repainted the black circle around the colored part of her eyes. Used layer masks to restore areas that had lost detail. Finally, added some grain.

Sam Carleton said:

Sam B,

Very nice, willing to share with us all how you did it?
--
Sam
http://www.miltonstreet.com
http://www.sportsshooter.com/scarleton
http://photos.miltonstreet.com/

Click to expand...

--
Sam

Thanks Cherilyn

Cherilyn said:

You nailed it Sam, this is the style I prefer!

Cherilyn

Click to expand...

--
Sam

--
http://www.mark-reed.co.uk

I didn't try LAB color, but that looks great for a straightforward optimization of B&W conversion (ie. not going for style points). While lot of people on the forum here seem to prefer a much lightened complexion on women (including high key styling), I think this is the best realistic conversion of that color source I've seen, though many were good.

Sam's was a good stylistic version on the other hand.

Which technique/adjustments did you actually use to go from color to B&W?

erichard said:

Which technique/adjustments did you actually use to go from color
to B&W?

Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. My workflow (not my own but a fairly well known LAB conversion method) was as follows:

1) Convert to LAB color
2) Select lightness channel
3) Convert to grayscale (discarding a and b channels)
4) CTRL click on Gray channel
5) Invert selection (CTRL SHIFT I)
6) Create a new Solid Color adjustment layer filled with black
7) Reduce opacity of adjustment layer to about 50%
8) Create a curves adjustment layer and adjust to taste

There are plenty more things you can then go on to do but that's the basis of the conversion.

--
http://www.mark-reed.co.uk

I tried it, and it works great. What does extracting and inverting that selection with the control click do for the picture when you add that black fill layer next? The selection seems to disappear, and I can't tell if the previous inverted selection really did anything.

This needs more refinement, but I wanted to try skin softening technique from Lunacore tutorial that uses the Median filter.

Added a PWL layer to accentuate eyes, lashes, brows and to soften the bright areas on teeth.

Followed with a modified Russell Brown B&W conversion: Adjusted the filter hue to get the lip and skin tones that I wanted, then adjusted the mid-tone contrast with levels adjustment.



original

Sam Carleton said:

Click to expand...

--
My 2¢ worth

Joe Filer
Mahomet, IL
http://www.pbase.com/filer

No1 might be slightly hot on the highlights but its a lot better than the grey looking No 2 IMO.



Andrew

Number 1, but here's another try: