The Smell of Mel
May 9, 2008
These are digital shots from one session on Monday afternoon. I’ll have an entirely different take done with 4x5 film ready next week. Mel is fast and smart so that when we do work, we crank…. FWIW each new generation of cameras makes color to B&W conversions look more like film — I’m pretty happy with my results right now.
Why the big modeling agencies haven’t fallen over themselves to snatch up the twins is beyond me…. I doubt there is another pair half as cool and beautiful on this planet.
And they’re mine, all mine muhahahaha.
~
High Geekery
My B&W conversion technique using Adobe Camera Raw:
Reduce Saturation to zero. Play with the Color Temperature and Green/Magenta Cast to get maximum separation of tones. Turn Clarity up and add Lens Vignetting to suit. Try to hold highlight detail using a moderate amount of Recovery. Make Contrast and Exposure adjustments to be pleasing and to spread the Histogram over the entire range, usually holding back slightly “on the right” to retain highlight detail. Then slightly increase the Black to “punch” things up, although sometimes Fill Light is needed instead.
Once in Photoshop use Curves to apply a global Auto-Correction, moving the middle tones up or down to suit, sometimes adding addition contrast using an “S”-shaped curve. Then go back and use the History Brush to paint back in highlight detail wherever needed, letting the most specular areas “burn out.” Finally Smart Sharpen and do local touch-ups. For small web jpgs hit the reduced size file with more sharpening at a low radius to keep the jpg compression from blurring the file too much. Use “Save For Web” for web images.
Of course the conversions work best with nice contrasty lighting. I have some flat images with a very limited range that are very difficult to convert without doing heroic measures involving layer masks and soft light blends — a lot of painting with History States and the like. I try not to spend too long on these digital images unless they are finals for reproduction, so I can usually do 20-30 nice ones in a work session.
For color I will often decrease the overall Saturation and increase the Vibrancy. Then I’ll go into the Color Adjustments tab and mess around with the Saturation and Luminance sliders of the most important individual colors. My biggest issue with doing color — that I like — is that I often shoot in very loose mixed lighting but I am anal about having my color being consistent — and that is often next to impossible. B&W eliminates that problem for me.
I only use ACR because it is bundled with Adobe CS3. If I was a wedding photographer, with thousands of images to process, I’d want to use Adobe Lightroom, but for my limited use ACR seems fine.
The new Nikon D300 makes this easier than with my earlier cameras — it has a greater range and retains more highlight detail. All the rest of my techniques are secret, lol.
Reader Comments (add yours)
1. Butch — May 9 2008 04:41 PM
You should definately share! LOL
2. Christian — May 10 2008 05:39 AM
clear and sharp expression. good start of the series :-)
3. cafe selavy — May 10 2008 07:06 AM
You are a lucky fellow, Frank. Was it just good, clean living? M is certainly beautiful, but there is tragedy in those eyes, too. In the photos, I mean. You can't buy that.
4. M — May 10 2008 08:39 AM
Pictures look excellent as does the B&W conversion. Good lighting makes the B&W conversion easier. There are a million ways to do it but would you mind sharing how do you do your conversion? It’s crisp with good contrast yet full of tones.
5. Meagan — May 10 2008 01:07 PM
Yeah so I understood like half of what you said... but I feel if I figured it out I would be elated, so maybe I'll come back and try that out... you know... when I'm not bombarded with the end of my semester.
6. jerry j — May 12 2008 12:12 AM
Nice photos but there's one great one: melo_143.jpg
7. Jerremy — May 14 2008 08:01 AM
Thanks for sharing the ACR tips. I really love your conversions.