bunker
 

Hi,

I'm trying to get used to translate into black and white. These pictures taken at hill 60 (ieper, Belgium) where taken past winter. I'm not sure about the black and white translation.
I would appreciate your idea about it.

Thanks a lot,
Sabrina

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7123/7522123868_296b6ec947.jpg[/IMG]
[URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81724042@N05/7522123868/in/photostream/lightbox/"]link to this picture[/URL]
[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7522117188_00837822ea.jpg[/IMG]
[URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81724042@N05/7522117188/in/photostream/lightbox/"]link to this picture[/URL]

Hi Sabrina,

As a rule, the kind of pictures that convert well to black and white, either need a lot of tonal information, or strong shapes or strong textures. In fact these often look better in black and white than they do in colour, because when you strip away the colour information it simplifies the scene, making it easier to view and understand.

Your two shots above possibly lack enough tonal range, as you have some areas of heavy shadows where the detail has been lost. Did you shoot these in raw or jpeg? If you shot them in raw, you might be able to tone-map them to give them a subtle HDR look that might improve the convertion to black and white.

I agree to much shadow range.

Yep , pull back a bit of detail in the shadows and the shots will look a lot better , having said that the rest of the B&W conversion looks really good . So often you see B&W conversions that are dull and flat but you have managed to steer clear of that problem and have maintained a good contrast .

Mark

I made the photos in RAW, so I sould be able to manage them.
I'll work on it this week-end, I'll post them when I'm done with them.

Thanks for help so far!