[Zig]

I realise that many photographers, particularly professionals who have to process and turnaround hundreds of shots per week( wedding snappers, for instance), cannot afford the time to craft too many "arty" touches in post-processing. Indeed, too much post-manipulation can easily render the image overworked or contrived.
However, sometimes we wish to captivate "that look" or add some sort of polish to that special image. Sometimes too, we just know that there's something that can be released from that image, if we just had that way of "lifting" it above the ordinary.

There are many bits of software out there that sell themselves as "suites", or whole rafts of "unique" tonal possibilities for our shots. Many are very pricey; many, like a CD of our fave band, have around 10% of exactly what we need but we find we're paying also for much that we either do not, or can do just as easily in our main imaging software. Again, some software runs well, quickly and seamlessly...some crawls slowly and causes annoying crashes.
I'm not going to explore the goods and bads of the wares out there. Personally I've found that chipping away at CS2 has revealed many seams of buried goodies: saving such processes as actions has enabled me to spend less cash on bought plugins. Mind you, I still think that investing in Nik Silver FX Pro would be fun, though I realise it represents for me a series of easy shortcuts to stuff I can do already. No matter.

What follows here is nothing more than an introduction to some tonal manipulations achievable in CS2.
Though I've presently not the time to give a complete blow-by-blow breakdown of settings and tweaks, I've commented in general terms the effect I'm looking for. I often use "darkroom" language rather than walking you through what steps and menus: maddening perhaps sometimes, yet I'm also aware that there are often many routes within Photoshop to the same or similar end.
For instance, I could "convert" to monochrome in any of a number of ways, and do the conversion at any of several stages of post-processing. Do I convert to greyscale? Do I go into the channel mixer and work in mono there...or do I desaturate yet still work in RGB? Well, I myself stay well away from converting to greyscale, as I lose too much information and also the effect of any colour filtration. I also may convert to CYMK then play about with saturation or dodge/burn...this can give some lovely irridescence to tones before conversion to mono.

So, there are many ways to skin a cat, as they say; you may well skin yours quite differently than I.

Here are several versions of the same shot.
The "base shot" was taken at f2.8. Given the distance I was from the subject, this was the wrong choice: I vaguely knew I would not the required narrowness of depth of field but rather than move closer or choose a narrower aperture, I just sat on my bench and snapped away.
Now, normally, I would have binned the shot, being neither fish nor fowl.
However, as I was taking the shot, I did not see the bird flap across the frame( I was looking at top left of frame to include the stone sphinx): when I looked at the raws I knew I had a potentially strong image.

Thus, the first choice I make is this: to decide whether there is anything strong enough, then decide what that strength is. If there is nothing worth the effort, then don't make the effort.
In this case, I decided that the main symbols or images within the shot worked well compositionally...but needed to stand out: the players, the bird, the stone sphinx and the pillars, with the backdrop of the abbey in the distance, all were strong enough to work with...but I needed them to stand out more distinctly.
I decided to work with light and dark, contrast and tonal differnces in order to accentuate the points of interest within the frame.

Without more ado, I'll introduce the images:

1. The "base" image: poorly-executed, lazily-taken, too much wasted foreground space...yet with the surprising bird! Hmm...worth cropping then...




2. Despite the strong triangular composition and the mono conversion to attempt to focus the viwer onto the main features of the shot, there is much extraneous detail...and most of it in better focus than the main subjects!




3. So, muting and softening the background tones in another layer, erasing the same over the main points of interest...a kind of "inverse" selective sharpening by blurring everything else!




4. Increasing saturation and contrast and multiplying the darks...you can mess about with a layer set to multiply or overlay mode, using a blur tool...




5. That done, time to experiment with various monochromes, varying the tints and tones. I also started to apply one set of tints to the mids, say, or darks, and another to the highlights. This is a simulated platinum process tone.




6. A split-tone of mine: neutral darks with a combination of warm mids and a blue toner on the mids.




7. This time, blue-toned mids with platinum-processed highlights:




8. And finally, perhaps too much of a good thing...?... multiplying just the darker tones to intensify the main subjects and symbols, then burning in the shadows till even darker; selectively blurring just these darker areas, then simulating a selenium toner over the entire image.




Finally, as I say, not so much a "how to", as just an introduction into manipulating tones for either the accentuating or reducing of detail.
I hope some of it is of some use.

[Irma]

Thanks so much for this post. You covered a lot of very interesting topics in post processing. It is a bit late for me now but I will come back tomorrow with probably questions about all these post processing...

See you morgensito...

[Toad]

Great tour de force showing processing options. Excellent to see how the image is interpreted differently depending on the processing style. As I mentioned in the other thread, I think the selective blurring in this image is what really makes it - by giving it a surreal dream-like quality. #3 and #8 make that case the best IMO. Strangely enough, the colored treatments seem to exhibit more "depth" to me - even when significantly blurred - particularly #3. The background of the street looks really strong in that one - although #7 also hits the mark there as well.

I know that I keep harping on dreams as a model for this - but I saw that instantly when I first saw this shot - and I still see it very strongly. So much symbolism - in the columns, the bird, the music, the hair, the gryphon, the street. The blurring where none should be in reality sharpens the unreality of the focused parts and the muted color of #3 really emphasizes that. The more I look at this image, the more I like it - and it is your processing that has taken the base photo (which is pretty interesting already) and really taken it to the next level.

[Irma]

Hi Zig,
Here again... when I first saw the original picture and remembered the post processed picture you showed first I realized that you did a great job with this image. I see in the original that the scene is lost but your post processing made it shine. As if you extracted the story you wanted us to see.

I know the blurry technique but I use it very seldom I see here that it can be very useful, when applied properly. Now I see two different things, the blurry technique and the soft focus. I used to work soft focus treatment in some pictures to give them a dreamy look, but then I realized than when I printed my image the dreamy effect was nearly gone, I think it is because of the contrast the printers apply to the image at the time they are printed.

You are right, there are many ways to convert your pictures in bw. I like very much to convert my picture to bw in photoshop, desaturate layer first and then underneath work a color balance or photo filter layer. My bw conversion in lab mode is also something I like a lot. It all depend on the image. However, I just discovered that only working with desaturation directly to the raw file looks very different from desaturated the same image in PS as tiff format. The light and the shades of gray are so different! It seems to me that each format reads colors in different way at the time to desaturate?

original


Raw file desaturation


Tiff file desaturation


I added the color version so we can see the difference.

This also made me think that applying toning to the raw file might work very different from the same toning in a tiff file in PS. Also, because in LR you can split the toning in highlights and shadows, but in PS ? the only possibility I see is doing it in lab mode applying the toning with mask in the luminance channel. Do you have any comment about this?

[Zig]

Er.....
....:|
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...:|
........No.

I'd think that any "conversion" done within the raw file is only analogous and is a matter of which information is lost.... whereas one is perhaps actually manipulating an image as a tiff. I'm only guessing, as I don't really understand the mechanics...I bet Saint Matthew can help!!
Yes, you're right...or rather, I find the same as you.Irma: PS does not readily or easily allow one to separate out shadow, mids and highlights so as to work tonally on each part...one has to dig about by experimenting with layers set to other settings than Normal". I find Overlay, Multiply, Soft Light effective but in a long-winded way and by trial and error. I have to apply an effect to a whole layer, then come in afterwards with the erase tool to get rid of where I don't want the effect, then mess about with blur tools.
The above can either be rewarding or a completely boring and labour-intensive waste of time, depending on one's level of confidence!

You also mention effects like blur or even diffusion seeming to work on screen but not so well in print...yes I agree...but I think I know why this is:
PS effects seem to be optimised as though they expect you never to print beyond about 8x10 inches! I can apply an intensity of effect to, say, a 7x5...then the same intensity to a 16x12, only to find the effect not "registering" too well on the larger size.
Which is a a pain in the backside as it's usually found out by trial and error: my only workaround is either to greatly increase, if possible(and it isn't on some effects in the filter gallery), the intensity of effect on a larger sized image....or to do it at the optimum size then uprez it(increase size and resolution together). Then, because PS' own uprezzing is so rubbish, even in bicubic, I use OnOne's Real Fractals.
I am indeed no expert: I don't have a magic formula...and when I do get something to work it is often by trial and error and I cannot remember the workflow. The stuff I'm doing now generally is just beyond the limits of my understanding.
I'd suggest something I'd also suggest to myself: to Google away about how to work separately on shadows, mids and highlights.
Sorry I'm not much help!

[NT73]

The Tiff file shows more detail than the raw file. Is this because a Tiff file is a camera or PS "doctored file" rather like a Jpeg?
Whereas the Raw file needs the user to extract detail via what ever program they use and then turn it into a Tiff or Jpeg or whatever.

[Kombisaurus]

I might be able to offer a bit of help here regarding b/w conversions.
As a software engineer who has written vaguely similar processing functions to these, I've got a reasonable idea of the process involved.

Firstly, the number one processing rule is to try to minimize the overall number of processing steps each pixel must go through. Every time a pixel gets processed, it loses a bit of fidelity. And this effect is compounded with every additional step of processing done on each pixel.
Imagine every pixel is represented by a single integer number between 0 and 9... let's say our pixel is 7... well each time you process a pixel, it's performing a mathematical function on that number, and the result must still be stored as an integer between 0 and 9 before being passed on to the next step of processing. Too bad if your function returned a value outside that range, or if it included values after the decimal point. Those subtleties are lost along the way, and then the erroneous values are passed on to the next function which further increases the error, and so things go on.

So.. how does this relate to b/w conversions?
Well, in theory the best way to maintain the highest image quality is to reduce the number of steps involved to the bare minimum. I say "in theory" because not all software is created equal. A great example of this can be seen in RAW conversion software. The quality of output varies a lot depending on the software you use, and sometimes it's worth a few extra processing steps if it allows you to use really high-quality software.

Now let's quickly take a look at the composition of a RAW file. As we know, a RAW file is basically just a dump of all the information that comes off the camera's sensor along with a little "recipie" list of choices that the camera would have used to turn that data into a nice colour photo, had the camera been creating JPG's instead of RAW files.
But what is of particular interest to us is to know that 99.99% of all digital cameras can only take b/w images! That's right, the images stored in these RAW files are monochrome images! The trick is that every pixel on the sensor has a tiny colour filter in front of it that is either red, green, or blue. These colour filters are arranged in a "Bayer pattern" that is really just a 3-colour checkerboard. Although each pixel is monochrome, it represents a level of red, blue, or green, not an overall light level which is how we imagine a monochrome image to be.
During the conversion process from RAW to JPG, the camera (or computer) looks at the brightness of each pixel and knows it represents red, blue, or green, and then using the information from the surrounding pixels and knowning the bayer pattern layout, it combines it all to guess the real colour of that pixel.
It's amazing how accurate this method works in the real world, but it does. With the exception of Foveon sensors and some specialised b/w-only sensors, this is how basically all digital colour photos are made.

So going back to our "fewest steps possible" rule... the idea of taking a monochrome image, changing every pixel dramatically by estimating a colour based on surrounding pixels, and then running it through a further desaturation process to convert it back to b/w.... well, that makes me cringe.

So... wouldn't it be nice if we could do the b/w conversion directly from the RAW file which is already in b/w? Admittedly it's kind of a checkerboard-looking b/w, but it's closer to being a true b/w image than being true colour.
Well thankfully we can do a b/w RAW conversion. But don't just look for a "desaturate" button, we can do a lot better than that. Any RAW conversion software worth it's salt includes flexible b/w conversion routines that allow you far more control than just to "desaturate".
Forget Lab mode, Tiffs, etc etc... Any changes you notice using those methods are purely incidental. We need to go back to basics and deal with the image straight off the sensor.

Lightroom makes it easy for us. There's a whole section in the Develop panel with the heading "HSL/Color/B&W". Well we only need the B&W section, and from there you can tweak how the various colours within your RAW file will translate into tones in your b/w image. This is awesomely handy, although it hints to me that the Lightroom RAW converter processes the RAW file into full colour before applying the b/w conversion... This isn't ideal, but it is still a high-quality conversion process and the routine has the opportunity to *know* it is doing a b/w conversion right from the beginning. The convenience of this means it is how I process most of my b/w shots.

If you're a Canon shooter than no doubt you've used DPP (Digital Photo Professional). Love it or hate it, there's no denying it does a FANTASTIC job of RAW conversions, and b/w conversions are no exception. Instead of the super-flexible sliders that Lightroom uses, in DPP you set the Picture Style to "Monochrome" and then have a 5-position "Filter Effect" slider to change the type of b/w conversion (don't confuse this with the "Toning Effect" which is a gimmick). While DPP doesn't offer the level of choice of Lightroom in the b/w conversions, I suspect each of these 5-position conversions really are optimised to make best use of the RAW data.

And while you're at it in either of these programs, any tweaks you want to make to the tone curve, white balance, etc etc are best done here than in Photoshop or other editing program. These tone/colour decisions all need to be applied to the image during RAW conversion anyway, so if you tweak them before the conversion then it prevents double-handling and associated problems.

There is one exception to the rule. Sometimes I want to do other processing of an image based on colour, and then apply a b/w conversion *after* that processing. In this case, there's no alternative than to open the file in photoshop, add the layers you need, and then add a b/w conversion layer on top. There is a dedicated Black/White Adjustment Layer you can add in Photoshop CS3 (or CS4?) and later, but my personal favourite is to add a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer and then tick the "monochrome" check box before playing with the sliders.

Sorry, this has turned into a really long post!

Zig, it's great that you're explaining your process in such depth and it's really interesting to see you exploring this.
But I must admit that with my own photography, I find myself processing less and less these days, and I'm feeling all the better for it. I'm also concentrating less and less on technique when I'm out shooting, and I find that very liberating. I feel like I'm not as bogged down as I used to be.

But I'm not knocking you or your approach. Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson had approaches that were poles apart, yet both proved beyond doubt how great their images could be. I guess I'm just moving away from my search for technical perfection in favour of a search for the decisive moment.

[Irma]

Thanks Adrian.
It is a great post with lots of information. You gave a good explanation about what raw file is and what contains. That made it very easy for me to understand why it is better to make your bw conversion directly in raw with grayscale.

I did already some test in my pictures some colorful ones I wanted to see in bw and others I had converted already and I was happy with them to see if this technique could improve them. I am surprised. My picture looks sharper and the best of all the contrast is so natural! The black is black but it has detail!!! I love it.

I didn't know anything about DPP and now I am ready to have a learning morning as I found lots of videos and tutorials to use with this program.

Thanks again for your great contribution to this thread...