[enviroguy]

Pioneer Village located in an urban location near York University, Toronto, has an imense treasure trove of photogenic sights. This is my first attempt at sepia conversion for an olden look and feel. I used a Photoshop plugin for faux HDR and then converted to Orton sepia and a few other tweaks. I'll certainly be returning to the Village at different times of the year.

f 9 at 1/60 sec, nice sunny day, but not "the golden hour"

[Irma]

I like your composition, it looks dynamic. As if the wagon would jump out of the frame....

May I ask why you chose a sepia conversion here?

[Pavel]

I like this photo a lot Dennis. The composition is great and sepia feels right for this "old" photo. There are some strange areas that look "discoloured" or black. It looks like blown highlights. Is that what it is? Pavel

[enviroguy]

Irma, Pavel....Thanks for your comments.

I chose the sepia conversion because the original photo, rendered in natural colour, had too many distracting elements and also I wanted "the 200 year old look". I thought that the plain B & W look wasn't old enough, so I played with sepia, although not in the best manner as I have learned.

I'm not sure what caused the black areas. I didn't notice them earlier. There are some blown highlights, particularly in the grass. The black may have been cause by using the weird plugin. I got some flack by other reviewers for using it. Some thought the photo was flat and lacked contrast. I tend to agree.

I had a peek at my software manual, beyond where I'm at, and I think I'll be able do a much better job using other techniques. I'm excited to try them.

Anyway, I had a great afternoon at the Pioneer Village, escorting a group of seniors around the historic buildings, even if it wasn't at 'the golden hour".

[NT73]

I am afraid I agree with the flat and no contrast, Dennis. I thought the picture was quite interesting and somehow spoiled by your treatment.
Maybe I don['t like B&W or Sepia as that was all I had as a child, and when colour came it was wowsy!
Affordable colour that is. I remember sitting with a brush and bottles of (laquer ??) painting pink faces and blue sky.
I like colour.............

[enviroguy]

Thanks for your comments, NT! As I said, I'll be redoing this photo using entirely different techniques. In retrospect, I'm no longer enamoured with my posted result. Post in haste; repent in leisure?!

When I first started photography as a kid, there was only black and white. Later on I put together a complete b&w wet darkroom.. What a great learning experience!

I truly believe that there is a place for both colour and monochrome images in photography. I appreciate the benefits of both for different reasons.

.....Dennis

[Irma]

I think there are a lot of thinks to work with your picture Dennis. I agree the contrast is not too hard but that was great to have detail in the walls and windows as well as the leaves I think. You could try to work a nice contrast with colors. I can't imagine what colors you have there, but I am sure you will get something much better than the sepia treatment.

I got a plug in to work a pseudo HDR. It makes black spots in my pictures, I use it very little because my pictures became a bit filthy.

[enviroguy]

Irma, the plugin I was using for faux HDR is called ReDynaMix. Whatever it does, I'll have to use it more carefully. I wonder if it's the same one you have that produces black spots.

I'll try to post my original image in colour with no processing other than resizing for interest and comparison. I can't seem to do that in this thread. img upload says "No File Selected.

[Irma]

That is the one I also have. My idea is that the program doesn't work with fine detail so it doesn't know how to replace some colors and just replace them with black.

Best results to me were working with Gama 1.20 and reducing Dramatic light strength. After working with this plug in I always have to work in ps as you did too.

Could it be that you get this message because your file is a bit large?

[enviroguy]

OK, here it is!..No processing at all..hard to resist doing some. You can see that there are many distracting elements in this colour image.

I assume that Gamma 1.20 is a setting in the plugin. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Irma.

[NT73]

I have just been playing about with the sepia version, and if you push up the gamma and contrast, and decrease saturation those black bits don't half show up. :|

Maybe a bit of selective gaussian blur in the colour version, slowly increasing to the distance.
I just tried a greyscale conversion and then added a new layer of a buff colour (memory of sepia), 'Multiply' and it seems to work better than a sepia conversion. You can control it more.

[Irma]

Hi Dennis,

Here is my try I wanted to show you.



I worked with a technique I found in this site. It has an action in the last line of the comment if you want to do it faster. It works well. After the action, I corrected contrast with levels and sharpen a bit.

About lab colors, here you have a post where we talk about lab color http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8756.

[enviroguy]

Hi, Irma! I believe that you have rendered the image into black and white monochrome very effectively. It has a certain charm over the colour version and looks much better than my attempt at septia. I will certainly try your suggestion with some other images in the future......Dennis