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Would appreciate some comment for this poor lady...

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raymond ruan

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I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355

But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
 
Sorry, forgot to include in the post.


Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
Raymond Ruan said:

Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
raymond ruan said:
raymond ruan said:
raymond ruan said:
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Raymond,

I like the color version much better. The black & white as it is seems quite flat, while the colors are quite vivid and give excellent life to the woman in the photo. The b&w loses the contrast between the woman's dark skin and the bright colors both behind her and in on her face and clothing. One thing you might try is adjusting the color channel levels individually in DIVU or PS after desaturating. You might be surpised at what fooling with the red levels will do even on a b&w image, and you may find that you are able to give that B&W some real life. Nice shot too, BTW.

Michael DeBruyn
 
Raymond Ruan said:

Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
The colour version is better IMO - it says quite more - nice portrait. BTW, quite often I'm a BW opponent. What caused the doubled contour?
Regards
--
Plamen
http://www.pantonov.com
 
The main problem with it is that it is grey and white not black and white. Could be that the very best monochromes are still made in the darkroom.
David.
 
mufi said:
The main problem with it is that it is grey and white not black and
white. Could be that the very best monochromes are still made in
the darkroom.
David.
Click to expand...
That, I'm afraid, is so. I used to do a lot of B&W darkroom work with film and paper, and there just isn't the dynamic range when converting a colour digital to grayscale.

Regarding Ruan's question: which one i prefer - the colour or the B&W? I prefer the colour as its emotions are more sincerely expressed.
I would accept the figure colourised against a grayscale background though.

John.
 
I did not do a good job in the conversion to B/W?
Maybe someone can try his/her hand in improving the B/W conversion.
Regards
Ruan
Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
john farrar said:
mufi said:
The main problem with it is that it is grey and white not black and
white. Could be that the very best monochromes are still made in
the darkroom.
David.
Click to expand...
That, I'm afraid, is so. I used to do a lot of B&W darkroom work
with film and paper, and there just isn't the dynamic range when
converting a colour digital to grayscale.
Click to expand...
The same occurs when making BW prints from a colour negative - the results used to be discouraging for me...
john farrar said:
Regarding Ruan's question: which one i prefer - the colour or the
B&W? I prefer the colour as its emotions are more sincerely
expressed.
I would accept the figure colourised against a grayscale background
though.

John.
Click to expand...
--
Plamen
http://www.pantonov.com
 
Raymond
The original uncropped colour version is much much better in a number of ways
1. more space is allowed over the left upper corner
2. The colour and tone is in a very simple way
3. The whole photo looks having more impact
 
Raymond,

I see a number of challenges here. First is that the color photo lacks contrast (i.e., dark rich reference shadow tones. Secondly the tonality and color of the background is very close to that of the subject, affording very little visual separation. The same problems carryover to the B&W conversion. On the edited version below I did the following:

1) Cropped tighter to eliminate extraneous background (its a portrait after all)
2) Used "Autocolor" to increase contrast.
3) Used sponge tool to desaturate the background

4) Used the burn-in tool to tone down areas other than the face, most notably the distracting purple shoulder in the foreground
5) Sharpened with USM (Amt = 500 R=.2 T=0 + Fade Luminosity 70%)

Chuck Gardner


Raymond Ruan said:
Sorry, forgot to include in the post.

Click to expand...
raymond ruan said:
raymond ruan said:
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
 
Hi Chuck,

The picture edited by you seem to have a greater punch. Thanks for the work flow on the editing.
Best regards
Ruan
Chuck Gardner said:
I see a number of challenges here. First is that the color photo
lacks contrast (i.e., dark rich reference shadow tones. Secondly
the tonality and color of the background is very close to that of
the subject, affording very little visual separation. The same
problems carryover to the B&W conversion. On the edited version
below I did the following:

1) Cropped tighter to eliminate extraneous background (its a
portrait after all)
2) Used "Autocolor" to increase contrast.
3) Used sponge tool to desaturate the background
4) Used the burn-in tool to tone down areas other than the face,
most notably the distracting purple shoulder in the foreground
5) Sharpened with USM (Amt = 500 R=.2 T=0 + Fade Luminosity 70%)

Chuck Gardner


Raymond Ruan said:
Sorry, forgot to include in the post.

Click to expand...
Chuck Gardner said:
Chuck Gardner said:
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
I think the b&w photo has that negative feel to it,..while the color one has that sort of "happy" feeling to it (with some of the bright colors give it that cheerful feeling), but i dont know, thats just what i think.
Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
ERAD ROCKS!
 
Hi Dude,

I also have the same feeling after I created the B/W. The lady looked sadder and more piityful than the colored one. But as most of the other posters said the colored one has more details and looks better as a picture.
Regards
Ruan
S404 Dude said:
Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
ERAD ROCKS!
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
Raymond, try this

http://www.arnason.no/modules.php?set_albumName=album61&id=beggar_1lw3357_2&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php

I find the channel mixer much better for B&W conversion as it allows you to adjust the colour contrast. In this case I darkened the skin colour by reducing the "constant" and then boosting the bluw channel.

Overall result,

Red 100%
Green 0%
Blue 35%
Constant -15%

You can try this yourself and get the effect you want. I also tightened the crop and added noise for some journalistic atmosphere!

Steve
Raymond Ruan said:
Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
 
Hi Steve,

Thanks for showing me your edit. I like it. It is also good to know that there are other better ways of creating a B/W from colour. I will try it on my other pictures.
Regards
Ruan
steve jacob said:
http://www.arnason.no/modules.php?set_albumName=album61&id=beggar_1lw3357_2&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php

I find the channel mixer much better for B&W conversion as it
allows you to adjust the colour contrast. In this case I darkened
the skin colour by reducing the "constant" and then boosting the
bluw channel.

Overall result,

Red 100%
Green 0%
Blue 35%
Constant -15%

You can try this yourself and get the effect you want. I also
tightened the crop and added noise for some journalistic atmosphere!

Steve
Raymond Ruan said:
Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
If the purpose of the shot is to be like that of a fund-raiser image then I believe you should show the hands, which are an essential component of human communication. If you want to use the image crop as it is then I'd suggest turning it into a kind of stucco-texture image or, perhaps better, colourise just part of it to signify that something is required to complete the image.
Regards,
John.
Raymond Ruan said:
Hi Dude,
I also have the same feeling after I created the B/W. The lady
looked sadder and more piityful than the colored one. But as most
of the other posters said the colored one has more details and
looks better as a picture.
Regards
Ruan
Click to expand...
 
Regards
Ruan
Michael DeBruyn said:
Michael DeBruyn said:
Michael DeBruyn said:
Michael DeBruyn said:
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Raymond,

I like the color version much better. The black & white as it is
seems quite flat, while the colors are quite vivid and give
excellent life to the woman in the photo. The b&w loses the
contrast between the woman's dark skin and the bright colors both
behind her and in on her face and clothing. One thing you might
try is adjusting the color channel levels individually in DIVU or
PS after desaturating. You might be surpised at what fooling with
the red levels will do even on a b&w image, and you may find that
you are able to give that B&W some real life. Nice shot too, BTW.

Michael DeBruyn
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
Do you mean those on here shoulder? I think is because I did not use feathers option when selecting the image.
Regards
Ruan
Plamen Antonov said:
Raymond Ruan said:

Raymond Ruan said:
I took this photo of a poor lady selling holy cards at an Indian
temple.
Some of you may have seen her in color earlier in the following
thread.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1024&message=4906355
But I have decide to produce a Black & White version of her. Please
let me know which is better, Colour or B/W. Do you get a difference
feeling or same for each version?



Regards
Ruan

--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
Click to expand...
The colour version is better IMO - it says quite more - nice
portrait. BTW, quite often I'm a BW opponent. What caused the
doubled contour?
Regards
--
Plamen
http://www.pantonov.com
Click to expand...
--
Raymond Ruan
 
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