Over the past few days, I’ve been experimenting with a new tool for B&W conversions. One of the things I love about digital photography is the ease with which we can re-interpret a photograph we have previously captured and processed. To show this, here are some sample shots from an outing to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, which I chose to process as B&W images:

For their respective B&W conversions these two images went through a Channel Mixer conversion followed by curves and levels adjustments to enhance contrast. Because I didn’t then feel it necessary — nor had I, in retrospect, the necessary skills and tools — to apply layer masking for local adjustments, the contrast changes I applied were pretty much global in nature, affecting the entire image.

What could I do today with Silver Efex’s control points, followed up with additional contrast enhancement in Photoshop?

The differences are in some respects nuanced, and in others more dramatic. As we’ve said before, there’s no right or wrong here, just more possibilities for interpretation and enjoyment depending on personal preference. Here are two more images from the same locale which I had previously set aside for lack of impact, and which now came to life through a Silver Efex B&W conversion.

Previously we saw a few travel shots taken with the local flavor in mind. “Local flavor” in local photography is best expressed in people since they most effectively define what a foreign place is all about.

Here are a few photos from Israel focusing on the local folk and re-processed in Black and White with Silver Efex.

Bazaar

Grape leaves

Standing on Dolorosa

Alley Guardian

At the school

Muslim mother

As we saw in a past book review, Michael Freeman believes that digital B&W conversion hold far greater flexibility and potential than their analog, film counterparts of the past:

“Digital black and white has largely overturned this. Indeed, it is impossible to overstate the significance of digital tools in creating black and white images. there are many, including layers, masks, channels, and curves, and the permutations, when using them together, are, virtually endless. At the heart of all this, however, is the ability to manipulate the three independent color channels, red, green, and blue, so as to control — again with infinite choice — the tonal value of all the colors in a scene. This is entirely new, and its potential is only now being explored.”

To “the heart of all this,” Freeman should now add the use of control points. Whereas in past conversion efforts I’ve relied almost exclusively on the interplay between the red and blue channels (more red, less blue) to achieve dark midday skies, in my recent efforts, I’ve been able to achieve even more dramatic results with my new B&W tool’s control point capability. Here are two examples I’ve worked on in the last couple of days, where judicious use of control points on an otherwise unremarkable and somewhat bland blue sky yielded dark, contrasting tonality there.

First the before pictures…

And then the after results…

Capernaum courtyard, Israel

Masada shelter, Israel