Urban regeneration

[mart_brown]

I know this one works well in black and white and I did the conversion to black and white in the raw converter before playing with levels, curves and adding a little sharpness. However, as a black and white I think it could be more dramatic or somehow stronger.
Any comments on how to process this differently?

Martin.

[rbarry]

A reserved amount of HDR treatment may bring out the contrasting subjects in both the foreground and background.

I love the composition of this shot and the juxtaposition this image presents to the viewer of modern v traditional urban life in a growing economic country. Well done Martin, you have a good eye for recognising when an image can tell a story.

[karenoliver]

You've always got burning and dodging to bring out details. There is always the man standing in the shot who could be closer by cropping in as well. It would have been nice to see the clothes hanging on the line in more detail . Don't know if you have heard of silver efex pro but that has some great black and white settings, including pinhole and holga. You could give them a whirl and see if it adds something to the shot? I'd also be interested to see the colour version as well.

Karen

[mart_brown]

Thanks rbarry and Karen! I'll check out silver efex pro... usually I prefer to just keep to conversions in raw and then add necessary PS after where necessary, but I always find converting to b&w more challenging, so maybe silver efex might be useful here. I'm not a big fan on cropping either, the man is definitely a part of the image, but he's still quite small in the frame, so I'm not sure if cropping or changing the aspect ratio will help much - I still like the detail in the foreground!!
Here's the colour - I think nothing is gained in colour and black and white works better here, but let me know what you think...

[Stormsong]

In camera, you could also try and over-expose by a few stops - I find that this works for white walls, backgrounds etc in much the same way that it works for getting snow to appear whiter rather than grey (which has something to do with the camera's white balance metering reading white as a shade of grey). It seems to be the same principle and has worked well for me with B&W images. However, if you intend to leave the image in colour, it may appear too over-exposed.

I did a B &W portrait shoot recently against a painted white wall using only off-camera flash and the initial shots were a bit grey, so pushed the exposure by three stops and the wall came out a crisp white instead of the usual grey.

Regards,
Denise

[amk1977]

One technique I use for images that I want to bring out the texture in is to simply duplicate the layer, then set the blending mode to multiply. I adjust the opacity of the layer until its pleasing. In the example below, I have done just this. I then duplicated the original again (b/w version) and put it on top of the multiply layer. I then apply a high pass filter to it, then set this to overlay.

From here you can doge and burn areas that require it but, I always find this an effective base to work off of.


This edited image was done in less than 2 minutes and consists of the original, a duplicated multiply layer @ 57% opacity and another layer with high pass filter set overlay@ 60% opacity, over the top of the original. I then did a curves layer and selected linear contrast just to tweak it slightly.



Edit: Same technique, applied to the coloured version, with the additon of a hue saturation adjustment layer to boost the reds and yellows. Dodging and burning is still required to bring out the whites in the doors

[karenoliver]

To be honest with you Martin, I much prefer the colour version beause it livens up the foreground, I can see the clothes on the line clearer and it just is more visually appealing ( to me anyway). I like how the colour brings out the decay and neglect and compares it to the paler and more dominant modern structure.

Karen