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Archive 2016 · B&W Lotus Flower

  
 
rongwam
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · B&W Lotus Flower


Rather giving up on shooting at high noon on a sunny day, I captured this lotus bulb and converted it to B&W. I appreciate your thoughts and any feedback.

Henry









Jul 21, 2016 at 01:55 PM
Linda Shorey
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · B&W Lotus Flower


Exquisite work, in my opinion! Elegant, with terrific impact. As I still have a long way to go with b&w processing, can you spend a moment talking about how you edited, specifically with regards to background? Was it in shadow, or a bright color that you could darken via filter in pp, or ? Thank you!


Jul 21, 2016 at 02:14 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · B&W Lotus Flower


Very well done.


Jul 21, 2016 at 05:42 PM
rongwam
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · B&W Lotus Flower


Thank you Linda and Ben for your positive feedback.

Henry



Jul 21, 2016 at 06:36 PM
rongwam
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · B&W Lotus Flower


Linda Shorey wrote:
Exquisite work, in my opinion! Elegant, with terrific impact. As I still have a long way to go with b&w processing, can you spend a moment talking about how you edited, specifically with regards to background? Was it in shadow, or a bright color that you could darken via filter in pp, or ? Thank you!


Hi Linda: I am not an expert in B&W either and still have much to learn. I believe that there are many ways to process B&W images, and to me, it is all about trying to express the artistic ideas that I have in mind when I shoot and post-process a B&W image. Sometimes I use simple techniques, while at another time, I might need to use more steps in photoshop to arrive at the final look.

For this particular image, I simply switched the image to B&W by using the B&W adjustment layer. Then, I adjusted the sliders of color channels to get the contrast that I like. After that, I used Dodge and Burn tool to darken the background and lighten up the foreground a bit. I did not want to make the background completely dark, so I burned selected areas. Finally, I adjusted the Levels to achieve more contrast look. That's all. Hope it helps, Linda!

Henry






Jul 21, 2016 at 06:46 PM
Linda Shorey
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · B&W Lotus Flower


rongwam wrote:
Hi Linda: I am not an expert in B&W either and still have much to learn. I believe that there are many ways to process B&W images, and to me, it is all about trying to express the artistic ideas that I have in mind when I shoot and post-process a B&W image. Sometimes I use simple techniques, while at another time, I might need to use more steps in photoshop to arrive at the final look.

For this particular image, I simply switched the image to B&W by using the B&W adjustment layer. Then, I adjusted the sliders of color
...Show more

Thanks so much, Henry. That is similar to what I've been doing, as well.



Jul 21, 2016 at 07:39 PM
lighthound
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · B&W Lotus Flower


This is very nice Henry. Simplistic and elegant with an almost bird like quality with a head, long neck, body and legs.

I might take a tiny bit off the top as the extra empty space is not adding anything and it's feeling a pretty long as it is. I was going to suggest a sliver off the bottom as well but I think the mass floating in the water gives it a nice visual anchor.

Nicely seen and captured!

Dave



Jul 22, 2016 at 09:13 AM
rongwam
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · B&W Lotus Flower


Thank you for your feedback and suggestion, Dave!

Henry



Jul 22, 2016 at 09:36 AM
sbeme
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · B&W Lotus Flower


Henry,
Nothing to critique here; only praise.
Beautifully done. I like the crop, the simplicity, the conversion, preserved ighting at the bottom. Just enough. I would have probably cropped as Dave suggested, but the feel of your crop works well and makes a slightly different statement, perhaps less expected.

Scott



Jul 22, 2016 at 08:05 PM
rongwam
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · B&W Lotus Flower


Thank you, Scott, for your positive comment.
I agree that cropping at top as Dave suggested could create another interesting version of the image.

Henry




Jul 24, 2016 at 12:36 AM
beavens
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · B&W Lotus Flower


Very nice, Henry!

I would push the simplistic comp by removing the hints of a background near the top of the shot and crop the bottom off right under the main leaf. Might want to check some of the highlights as they look borderline blown and could benefit from recovery.

I dig your mono work.

Cheers,

Jeff



Jul 27, 2016 at 01:25 PM
rongwam
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · B&W Lotus Flower


Thanks Jeff for your feedback and suggestion. I do agree that the highlights was right at the borderline blown, it is mainly because I pushed the high contrast. I will check them and recover a bit if necessary. Thanks for the helpful comment!

Henry



beavens wrote:
Very nice, Henry!

I would push the simplistic comp by removing the hints of a background near the top of the shot and crop the bottom off right under the main leaf. Might want to check some of the highlights as they look borderline blown and could benefit from recovery.

I dig your mono work.

Cheers,

Jeff




Jul 27, 2016 at 02:26 PM





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