Hi folks ,trying out some ideas presented for discussion by a very talented individual, namely the use of the Desaturation control to adjust contrast and tones ? in Black and White photo printing. Any one interested in discussing or has tried out the idea . John J. Morton. ''Corncrake''
I use a variety of techniques depending on what I"m after. I usually make my initial edit in Camera Raw, using the HLS/Grayscale sliders, and swapping between grayscale and colour to get the saturation/luminence how I want them in colour to get the black and white I want. If it's still not right there's a bit of a trick once you open the file in photoshop. You open the (colour) file in photoshop, duplicate the layers, turn one off, open a black and white adjustment layer and sandwich it between the two image layers, moving the sliders aroudn to get what you want. If you want to make adjustments to saturation etc, you turn on the other image layer, open it in Camera Raw and fiddle around in there. Move the B/W adustment layer above it and then you can turn the image layer on and off to see what effect it has had - fiddle accordingly! Not sure if that's what you meant though?!
In conversion from colour to mono you can affect the result by varying HSL. I presume there is a systematic way to use the controls to emulate the effects of using yellow, green, orange, red filters and all degrees between. I was playing with HSL in lightroom the other day to try to minimise differences in the colour of a blue sky across shots taken at different angles to the sun and different exposures. I'd have to go back and check exactly what I was looking at histogram wise, because I can't make sense of my memory, but changing the "Blue" only slider on my sampled colour. Luminance moved all RGB curves together, saturation moved B relative to R and G and hue moved R relative to G leaving B fixed. By aiming at ajustments that got the peaks of the R,G,B curve to values in the reference image I was able to roughly match the skies but I can't figure out what the histogram was showing. I wonder if it was for all pixels in the image that fall within the segment of the colour wheel in which the sampled colour falls.
Good grief! Isn't it easier just to change paper grades? (This assumes you're printing in a real darkroom, of course). Cheers, R.
I don't think actual printing is involved. I think the question was about conversion from colour. Printing might be the next question but not in a real darkroom.
As already pointed out with B&W printing ( on an enlarger ) , as this is your question , just use Ilford's multi-grade paper and relevant filter . Use the technique where you expose twice with two different filters to get the best out of them . Also use filters on your lens at the picture taking stage , ie , yellow , yellow green , orange etc . Starting with a good negative is the best way forward . . If your scanning your film and printing via an injet printer , or if your shooting digital , then your asking in the wrong forum . See here ; http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/forums/digital-image-editing-printing.18/
You could always take your digital image, desaturate it, reverse the tones to create a negative and then make a film negative using one of these: http://w3.marietta.edu/~mcshaffd/macro/pfilmrec.html
In the question being asked the O.P stated "in Black and White photo printing." With him also asking about saturation it isn't clear if he is using colour film instead of black and white film . I suspect it's a question about digital cameras and editing for printing on an ink jet printer , but has been asked in the film forum ....... Hence the link in my post above .
Well now ,lots of good stuff to think about.the shots tat i am working on were taken on a Canon Film 35mm camera...using f Fujii Superia 35mm x(i think) 400 asa film ...this was processed to negs..and also scanned to disc..then downloaded to computer for editing E.T.C. one of the negs.had a street scene with the subject very poorly lit,,the rest of the neg...being brightly lit. I have reasonably decent photo editing progs.. Gimp---Nero--Fasttone....but still contrasty tried desat control (as was mentioned above) with a combination of skittering about I managed to get a reasonable result.
Hi John, I'd curious to see the original (scanned) photo in colour and, then, your mono version after having a fiddle with it. I did a couple of shots at a camera swap meet last April (2016) and had two different pics in the same/similar lighting but with two different exposures -- one of OK and one was ugly (thin) … and converted them to Mono …here they are: Cheers, Jack Simpson
nice picture and editing, btw i have seen a site which is allowing free photo editing, one should try. i mean it is since you don't have to do editing at all. all you do is upload a picture and they will do it. but only issue is they allow only an image which is upto 250mb so what i did i resized the image and then uploaded on freephotofix.com
Hi B_23, I don't know of many photographers who would rather have an unknown person or software edit their photos and, geez louise, 250MB file's , lard tunderin jeeezus, that would encompass nearly a day's shooting (without deleting) for me … Nope, I prefer to muddle along on my own and, thanks, but I think you're being a bit generous if you were referring to my pics .. re: "nice picture and editing" Cheers, Jack
hi Done, Thank you & I understand that you want to do your own pictures, but majority of people do send pictures (actually people pay for it) since I am getting it done for free so I am sure some will like it and some won't
I see you do photo restorations, as well, I get a few requests for this at work --- I work in Photo Retail -- and I will forward on your name and, hopefully, get you some customers from the West Coast Cheers, Jack
