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E-M1: Ojito Wilderness and a limestone cave, monochrome

Started Aug 26, 2014 | Photos thread
Klarno
OP Klarno Veteran Member • Posts: 4,239
Re: E-M1: Ojito Wilderness and a limestone cave, monochrome

jkrumm wrote:

I just duplicated your settings (I think) and the slight red toning is interesting. I switch back and forth between my regular monochrome image and now it looks kind of green.

Yeah, that's part of why I shy away from using blue or green toning--much as I like blue, I can't shake the feeling that those tones being dominant feels like poorly calibrated equipment. The toning you like is, of course, totally up to you.

My aim for the channel mixer settings is dark skies and bright yellows and oranges, which seems to work pretty well for me for the desert southwest, and also worked pretty well for a few shots from Yosemite, so probably it's a good general purpose landscape setup. I probably wouldn't use the same setup for things other than landscape and architecture, though.

I think the thing to remember with monochrome conversion is that there is no real one stop shop. You can't just translate each tone from a color band to monochrome expected to come out looking anything like good. Far more important than the spectral response of your film is your dodging and burning. Which is partly why Nik Silver Efex Pro is such a brilliant piece of software for monochrome conversions, because it's not just about the monochrome conversion. I just didn't want to spend money on it when I already have Photoshop.

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