Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/05/07

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] B&W conversion methods
From: abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)
Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:28:35 -0700
References: <55492852.4090001@cox.net> <55492C32.7060903@lighttube.net> <QMFn1q01C07g8Sg01MFpha@mac.com> <55495758.8080408@cox.net>

I think your revision is the better choice, at least to my eye on a monitor. 
For an image like this, though, the proof is in how it prints and that would 
be an interesting process.

I also think highly of using Tony Kuyper?s luminosity masks to develop 
images. They offer a powerful tool to work with challenging images. I don?t 
use them all the time but they?re well worth the effort when they are needed.

It?s funny but adding a bit of grain to an image also makes a difference as 
well. I?m not sure why this is the case. I wonder if people who haven?t seen 
a lot of black and white printing would experience it the same way as those 
of us who have lived with it most of our lives.

A momentary digression:

We?ve been watching many of the ?30 for 30? documentaries on ESPN while Jan 
recovers from her knee replacement. Especially in the basketball stills from 
the 80s there are some killer black and white images. I admire the 
photographers who made them because they weren?t shooting thousands of 
images in bursts of 50. They had a few rolls of something like Tri-X and a 
motor drive. And skill. And an eye. It shows.

Now back:

All of the images I saw had film grain. It really added to the image in my 
eye. Maybe it?s what I expected. Or maybe it?s something else: like how a 
bit of hiss in an audio recording makes the highs sound brighter (a 
documented psycho-acoustic phenomena).

I believe you have added grain to images, Ken, in the past, to good effect. 
Maybe here?

Also, what?s the full size of these images? I somehow think the original is 
larger?

Adam

> On 2015 May 5, at 4:50 PM, Ken Carney <kcarney1 at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for commenting and I think you are right, that I went a little 
> overboard.  Here is hopefully an improvement:
> 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/kcarney/_MG_2525BWTX2.jpg.html
> 
> Ken



In reply to: Message from kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney) ([Leica] B&W conversion methods)
Message from jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols) ([Leica] B&W conversion methods)
Message from kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney) ([Leica] B&W conversion methods)