[_MB_]

I'm quite keen for some feedback on how to lift B&W images without making them look stupidly contrasty. Perhaps theres just too much grey and not enough black and white in this photo for it to work. I think maybe I should have got closer and ignored the grass getting blown about by the wind - what caught my eye originally was this shack looks like its not been used since the 50s but has a shiny gold letterbox at the far end and I feel thats not going to get seen. Its a shame there werent so many trees behind it if shooting from that end.



20D
14mm @ f14 1/50th

[Markulous]

Well, whilst know there are plenty who'd disagree with my method, I use dodge and burn - find I get much more control



Emphasised the light, burned back bright trees, dodged the overly dark areas

Oh, and a nice shot too!

[_MB_]

What size/shape strength do you use Mark?

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by _MB_

What size/shape strength do you use Mark?

I used to only use dodge: highlights@5% and burn: shadows@5% but now I use all the options, including spraybrush (I guess as I've got used to what all the controls do).

So, for instance I dodged the dark areas of the trees behind with Midtones tho was down to about 4 or 5% as I wanted it lighter but not contrastier

Overall, I went for two "lines" of light, emphasising the diagonals over the window and door

[Dave]

I generally use USM to lift a landscape Mono...so have a play with this setting to see how it lifts the grass for example ..... Unsharp Mask (USM) at 50%, 50 pixels, 0 threshold. The Grass should look quite dramatic now, but the shed & trees will be OTT. This is where you use duplicate layers & mask back the stuff you don't want effected, then do the same again for another area at different USM levels

[skipper954]

I think that this is where cs3 and camera raw come into play. In the new ACR, you can fine tune the tones selectively, bring down and highlights and increase detail in the shadows to make a fair image very good.

And you can do this with psd's and jpegs as well.

I have just started using it, and am impressed with this aspect.

skip