project black and white

I have been looking forward to this section for a while now, black and white photography is something I enjoy both looking at and trying to master.

Black and white photography has become more popular again in recent years, this I think is particularly true for portrait work especially babies, children and weddings.

Due to the lack of colour other factors become more important for example shape, form and proportion.

It will be interesting to see how my views of both black and white photographs and how I set about taking them changes over the course of this project and the connected exercises.

I have the complete guide to black and white digital photography by Michael Freeman which I intend to use as a starting point.  I have had a brief look through and can see plenty of information to help me on the various sliders and other adjustments I need to think about making, and also black and white hdr work.


In addition to my favourite old time photographers I have also looked at the work of some more contemporary photographers. One who caught my eye was German photographer Osman Balkan.
He photographs handsome men rather than the usual feminine portraits favoured by most photographers. His gritty pictures use little or nothing in the way of props but rely on lighting and expression for maximum effect. One of his photographs of Jaco Van Der Hovan where he appears to be looking directly at you is both mezmwerising and disturbing, I think the model has the viewer held captive with his piercing eyes, where as other photographs show the more vulnerable side of men.

I think this will be a very interesting section to complete.

Exercise:Interpretative Processing

The next exercise is really all about being creative. There are plenty of controls within photoshop which can be used to help interpret an image.  The image I have chosen to practise with is an old fishing boat from Whitstable.  This is  very much photographed therefore it will be interesting to try and do something a bit different with the image.

Above it the original raw photograph, it is a nice enough picture but one that has been taken many times by many many people. Below is my interpretation of it.

The adjustments I made were; the white balance was changed from auto to daylight. I then took the vibrancy and saturation sliders right down until I had a barely coloured photograph, the final adjustment was to increase the contrast. I chose to keep a small amount of colour in rather than go black and white, as I wanted to keep some of the interest in the boat and a black and white version isn't quite right on this.

For the second part of the exercise I need to take a photograph and make three different versions of it. It occurred to me that the chimneys I had used in the previous exercise would work well for this particularly after my comments.

Above is a reminder of the original raw shot.

I wanted to go for a vintage or aged look, something I think suited the age of the chimneys.

for the first photograph I kept the white balance as shot, I then opened the raw file and using layers I applied a photo filter, I choose a warming one at 56% to give an aged look.

For the second one I changed the white balance to daylight, I then adjusted the contrast, brightness and saturation sliders down before pushing the vibrancy slider up slightly. This gave a darker look to the photograph.

For the final photograph I used a custom white balance and adjusted the temperature and tint sliders and the saturation down, I was looking for a faded photograph look.

Photographs two and three had all the adjustments done in Raw, I only have elements 11 but I must admit I was surprised how much could be achieved just by using this.

I now need to assess whether I have achieved my aim for this exercise, I think the answer to that question is yes. The three photographs all show a look of aging, my favorite is photograph one I like the warmth to it, almost in a way like the afterglow from a sun set, or a photograph that has been kept in a box for a long time.

Managing Colour Cast

The brief for this exercise is to find two or three photographs showing a significant colour cast, and then to 'correct' it.

I have looked back over the photographs I have taken for this module to see if there is any thing suitable to work on.

I found this Photograph of some chimneys taken from my mums garden, they are all that really remain from a beautiful old house.

It is possible to see that the clouds are not the correct colour, and have a cast of almost magenta across them, as this spoils an otherwise nice photograph, I am interested to see how by 'correcting' the colour cast  I can 'improve' it.

The 'corrections' I applied to this photograph are to adjust the white balance from Cloudy to daylight and to adjust the tint slider to +3, although this was only a very small adjustment it has added a bit more depth.

This second photograph is again of the chimneys, this time I intend to adjust the white balance as before, but also  to adjust the temperature slider to see if that makes  any significant difference.

 I adjusted the temperature slider to +4700 and this time the image looks as I remember it, the sky is better and I am happy with this now.
One of the things I did notice on completion of this exercise, is that although the photographs I chose to use originally had a colour cast,  it did almost add something to the photograph.  By this I mean that the original photographs had an aged look about them which is almost in keeping with the chimneys in the photographs.
This I guess could be called artist choice.

Exercise: Managing Tone.

Optimizing the tones (Black, White and mid tones) are one of the most important steps to getting the image correct. These can be small adjustments but they will always be a necessary step. This should be the first thing you do after images have been logged and saved.
My monitor has been re-calibrated using a spyder 3, and therefore I am already to start this next set.
I need to set the black and white points, and starting with the top slider I will work my way down them, making sure I have the clipping warnings on. This is all performed in raw.

However having said about making these adjustments the first task I have to perform is to adjust the JPEG version. Below is the J Peg before any adjustments have been made. I chose this photograph because there is a selection of shadow, highlight and mid tone areas.

I have now opened the JPEG in photo shop elements, and set the black and white points.  I have also brightened the mid tones, making the overall look of the photograph much brighter. It is now possible to see the bottom third of the photograph. The only other thing I would possible do is to burn very slightly the white area, however I do not think it would be totally necessary.

Above is the final version of the JPEG with a 3% burn to the white wall, I do however appreciate this was not performed through the raw converter.

On to the raw file, I started by making sure the highlight clipping warnings were activated. I then took the exposure slider completely to the right so that the photograph was over exposed, I then slowly adjusted it until there were barely any warnings showing. A further adjustment was made to the mid tones using the contrast slider.

Above is the before and below is the after.

Unfortunately I am unable to make any other adjustments in raw and I would need to open the photograph to continue with further adjustments.

I also have light room, however this is not something I am really conversant with at the moment, but below is a trial attempt.

Exercise Raw

The brief for this exercise says to set your camera to take a combination of raw and high quality JPEG, as this is something I have done for a few years I am quite comfortable with it
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One book which I feel will be invaluable to me for this section is once again 'The Digital SLR Handbook' details of this book have already been included in my reading list, also the digital camera magazine.

I need to plan and shoot three three images in three different lighting situations. I had brought some Gerber's and had been wanting to photograph them for some time so I decided to take the opportunity of using them in the artificial light situation, I set up a small table with a black back drop and the Gerber in a small vase, I then used a studio light to light it from the side, I kept the iso to 200 and varied the speed and f stop finally settling on f6.3 and the shutter speed of 1/13 second, I used a tripod and shutter release to take the photographs,.
I have included four  photographs for this section two raw file conversions and two jpeg conversions.

This is the jpeg  I didn't do a lot to this just some brightness and contrast adjustments followed by hue and saturation adjustments, I was pleased that I had managed to keep the black of the back ground from the start and that this needed very little adjustment at all.

this second photograph is the raw conversion, this time I did most of the adjustments in the raw converter I use elements 11 at the moment, I adjusted the highlight trying to avoid too much highlight clipping which I managed to do apart from the edges of a couple of the petals, I then adjusted the clarity and vibrancy sliders before opening the file and using the adjust colour curves.

The next two photographs I tried a slightly different process on each one.

This is the jpeg i cropped it altered the brightness and contrast and then in levels I adjusted the mid tones in levels.

The fourth shot is the raw file again I cropped the image then adjusted the clarity, vibrant , brightness and contrast sliders all in the raw converter.

I was really pleased with this set of photographs particularly as I had managed to get the black to remain black on the j peg file something which can be difficult to do as it often seems to have a green tinge to it, I left the white balances on the incandescent setting, I tried flash but the effect was not right.

I am hoping to keep the flower theme for  the other two photographs, I have a patch of chives in the garden which are just coming into bloom the light in the afternoon looks beautiful on them.

The chive flowers are now on hold at the moment but I have taken a photograph I have been waiting for a year to take, my mum has a small apple tree in her garden and also these beautiful very old garden chairs, for a long time now I have wanted to take a photograph of the chair under the tree, my original idea was to have a lady sitting there in a floral dress with a big hat but there wasn't enough room under the tree to sit someone comfortably.
I therefore decided to just have the hat, with sunglasses and a book laying on the chair as if someone had just got up from it.

The first one is the raw file I changed the white balance from shady to daylight preferring the colours, this particularly photograph I must admit I was unsure which white balance to use and finally opted for shady which I cold see didn't look quite right when I looked at it on the computer. I then adjusted the clarity before opening the raw file and slightly cropping the right hand side of the photograph,the only other adjustment I made was to adjust colour curves.

This was the JPEG and the white balance hasn't been changed from shady, although its not right there is something that I like about it, i think I might try a sepia filter over it to see what the effect would be. I again cropped the right hand side of the photograph then altered the mid tones in levels and darkened the photograph slightly in layers.

I have included the sepia conversion, firstly I removed the colour then I applied a sepia filter over the top, I rather like this and may well print this for my mum, as it will suit her house.

The third set of photographs needed a high dynamic range so I again picked somewhere in my mums garden to keep the flower and garden theme together, this time I chose a small wooden man with a white statue next to it. I decided that this would be interesting as the was dark shadows and also the white of the statue to deal with, this i judged would be the hardest part as I didn't want to loose the detail and it took several attempts before I was happy with the result.

the J Peg version is the first one , I tried to dodge and burn on this photograph but I still struggled to bring any detail out in the shadow area behind the man, I also adjusted the levels slightly.

The raw version I adjusted the clarity and used the shadow slider to lighten the shadow area, you can see this was more effective for showing the detail in the area behind the man and it is now possible to see some of the brick work. I then adjusted the brightness slightly, but I think the detail is only just held in a couple of places on the statue, this may have been helped if i had burnt the highlights slightly at maybe 1%.

Having completed this exercise I am glad that I made the decision a few years ago to shoot in both JPEG and Raw as there is more that can be done with a raw file and a lot of 'mistakes' can be 'helped' in Raw rather than a JPEG.

The other thing to remember is that Raw files are none destructive unlike a JPEG where the more changes you make to it the more the detail is removed.

One of the other big advantages of shooting in raw is the fact you can change the white balance, and how by correcting it you can really improve a photograph, this is shown quite clearly in my daylight photograph were I had inadvertently used the wrong white balance and by changing it in photo shop I was able to salvage that photograph.

Processing the image

Part three and its starting to get a bit more interesting now, as its time to get to grips with processing images,, I have shot in raw and j peg for about four years now, the jpegs are really just references for me when looking over the photographs I have taken on the computer screen.

I have been looking back over some my old photography magazines (I always knew I was keeping them for a reason) and reading the various articles, the main two magazines I have used are digital Camera magazine and N Photo.

Raw files are essentially a package of data which can only be opened using special software for example photoshop, cameras also come with software packages that will allow you to open raw files Nikon for example use viewnx2. One of the best things about using raw files is you can do none destructive editing in other words you can make as many changes to the raw file as you wish but the original date will always be kept.Because raw files capture more detail than JPEG It is possible to rescue parts of a scene which might not have been possible with JPEG dark areas in particular can be lightened.

White Balance and Overall colour

This is something that I find very interesting in that you can change the whole look of a photograph by using the correct white balance, although I tend to keep my camera on auto white balance and even on programme if I am walking between places I want to photograph ( I was at a talk by Gavin Hoy who recommended doing this as he said it is better to get the shot than miss it) I then reset my camera when I get to where I am going and carry on.

What I also find interesting is that where you would normally refer to red as warm and blue as cold it works the other way round when you are talking about colour temperature.
Colour temperature is measured using the Kelvin scale, most cameras will allow you to set the white balance and DSLR cameras will allow you to custom the white balance, allowing you to accurately photograph the scene t o do this you need to meter a piece of white card or a patch of white in the scene.
These adjustments and others can also be carried out in the processing stage if you shot in raw.

For the first part of the  exercise I  need to photograph a scene or a person and do four versions using auto white balance, sunlight, cloudy and open shade on a sunny day. In place of a person I used my dog who is quite happy to be included in fact she is often includes herself even if I didn't want her in.

This is my dog in the garden I have used auto white balance for this photograph the rest of the settings are F8 @ 1/1000's the colour is not too bad on this but its not quite as I saw it.

The next one was using the shady white balance this looks really odd as the colour is almost yellowy and not at all as it should be I have artificial grass in my garden and the colour is nothing like this at all, the rest of the settings are F8 @ 1/200's.

Photograph three is using the cloudy white balance the colours on this are not too bad the grass is ok and her colours are reasonable but not quite correct, the rest of the settings are F8 @ 1/250's

the final photograph in this set is on the sunny white balance, this one shows the best temperature and the colours as I saw them, the grass is the correct colour and so is the dog, her fur is almost cream which is how it should. the rest of the settings used are F8 @ 1/200's.

The next set of photographs are taken when the weather is cloudy which it is alot at the moment but its a shame the sky's are so dull with very little actual cloud formations and mostly just all one colour. As the clouds are so uninteresting at the moment I decided to walk around my own garden and see what was around, I found these berries and thought it would be interesting to see how by changing the white balance it would change the feel of the photograph and also the colour of the berries.

This first photograph is taken on the auto white balance setting you can see that that camera has tried to chose the best setting but it is not quite correct, I decided to use a  fairly wide aperture of F6.3 on these photographs as I thought the most import part was the berries and who the different white balances changed them.

The next one was the sunny white balance this gave the photograph a sort of orangey tone to it I quite liked this effect though.

The third one was the shady white balance this time it seems as if by using this setting the photograph was really warmed up in an odd way almost as if it had been lit.

The final photograph was taken with the correct cloudy white balance the berries are the correct shade and the wall seen in the bottom left is also correct in colour as a faded terracotta colour.

The final photographs were taken at my mums as I said in my previous post about dynamic range.

The first one again I started with the auto white balance again its ok but nothing great it will be interesting to see how the greens in the photographs change with the different white balances as there was a few different ones in the area I picked to photograph.

The cloudy white balance has again given the photograph a slightly different look the bottom left of the photograph looks almost yellow in a way it almost looks like the sun is shinning over the whole photograph which it wasn't.

Interestingly on the third photograph where the sunny white balance was used the colour isn't too bad, I had tried to keep the sunny part of the photograph to a minimum I just wanted to show that the majority of the photograph was in the shade.

Finally the fourth one and again this has been taken using the correct white balance setting of shady

Looking at the greens I spoke about at the beginning of these four photographs I can see the various a lot better in the colours.

So what have I learnt so far? I think the biggest thing I have learnt on this white balance exercise is that you need to chose the right white balance to suit the photograph in order to avoid getting a colour cast, I remember doing a similar exercise to this in the art of photography and I photographed my husband outside with different white balances at different times of the day, looking at some of the photographs I wasn't sure whether to take him straight to the doctors as he looked a very funny colour.

On to the second part of the exercise and i need to photograph  an indoor/outdoor scene at dusk making sure that the room is lit with incadescent lighting of the old fashioned kind of bulbs rather than modern cfls, , I need to take the same photograph three times using three different white balances which are: sunlight tungsten/incadescent and auto.
As is usual for me I started with the auto white balance as I find it interesting to see how the camera 'sees' the  colour temperature of the room.

With the auto white balance setting there was a slight gold/orange colour cast to the photograph, which if you didn't know the  room you may find acceptable although if you look at the white paint work the colour cast is very noticable.

The sunlight one was completely wrong the room looked really orange and the colour cast was so noticeable on the white paintwork, I would find this photograph unacceptable if it was given to me.

The final photograph was taken on the correct tungsden/incadescent setting, this time there is no colour cast the white looks fine (it was never a brilliant white) I would find this photograph acceptable as far as colour temperature goes.

This has really been an interesting exercise to almost repeat from the Art of Photography but I feel I understand it even more now and can really see the difference choosing the correct white balance setting has over the picture, this is something I will be paying particular attention to in future.

Finally as I shoot in raw I took the auto white balance photograph and experimented with the white balance slider taking it from 4250 to 3500 to produce a compromise photograph.

This does still have a slight colour cast to it but I would accept it more than some of the others particularly the sunshine one.