Mid-week monochrome seems like a perfect description of today’s skies. I took a couple of pictures while we were getting on the ferry and was curious to see how much difference switching to black and white would make
Color
Simple desaturation
Then I played with a more elaborate black and treatment:
Dramatic treatment using Nik
Looking in another direction.
Color
Simple desaturation
A more dramatic treatment using the Nik Silver Effects pro
Dramatic black and white
Since we had thunderstorms and a lot of rain the more dramatic black and white seem to suit the feel of the day. But my eyes did not deceive me: there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the color image and one that is simply desaturated.
A little later we got a little more light (and the power came back on!).
Color
Simple desaturation
Dramatic treatment using the Nik Silver Effects Pro program.
Longji terraced fields near GuilinLines of terracotta soldiers in Xian.Line-up of roof guardians at the Forbidden City in BeijingLines of greenhouses in Shandong Province from a train window.Lines on the sidewalk in Shouguang.Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3.Curved roof lines of Beijing-Nan Train Station.
A gallery of photos taken in China over the years that I thought were dominated by lines.
I associate Hawaii with color. But I took several photos during the blue hour and they aren’t exceptionally colorful, so I tried a few of them out in black and white.
Morning waves at Sandy Beach on OahuMorning waves at Sandy Beach on Oahu.Morning waves at Sandy Beach on Oahu.
All photos were taken with my Sony RX10iv. I use Raw Therapee to do the basic adjustments then load the resulting .tif files into the GIMP. I used Nik Silver effects to convert to black and white, then did some touch up and added a vignette using the GIMP.
Looking up from the river bed.Looking down from a viewpoint on a nearby path.
These could have been from anytime in the past two millennia.
The Pont du Gard is so old and classic, in the antiquities classic way, that I couldn’t resist giving a black and white conversion a try. If you’d like to compare, I posted it in color on my other web site: Real golden Arches: Pont du Gard.
I use the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (a.k.a., the GIMP) with the Nik plug in for the conversion. If you are interesting in using the GIMP for black and white I have a post about how to do it: Black and white digital photo processing using the GIMP.
We took the long way home from The Mountain last week, in order to get some apricots in Eastern Washington. The climate on the far side of the mountain is quite dry and the landscape is stark compared to the lush near rain forests on the western side, but it is beautiful none-the-less.
I think the landscapes have a classic, timeless look in black and white.
These were turned into black and white using the GIMP, open-source software. I used the same methods as I did for the post: Mountain landscapes in black and white.
The rock rose was converted to black and white using RawTherapee, an open source program, and the Columbine was processed using the Nik Silver Effects Pro plug-in for the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I added a vignette and a focus blur in the GIMP.
For the past year or so I’ve been studying black and white. Specifically using open-source software (the GIMP and Raw Therapee). It is very interesting to see how different elements catch your eye when you remove color.
Here are a few photos from the past few weeks.
Spring woods
Fern Cove on Vashon Island in Puget Sound.Converted to black and white using the GIMP’s built-in mono-mixer tool.
Do you think it still feels like spring with the color removed?
Siberian Iris
My neighbor’s irises.Converted to black and white using Raw Therapee’s luminance equalizer method.Converted to black and white using the Nik plug-in to the GIMP.
This photo, with two variations shows how you can get different effects. I couldn’t decide which of these two black and whites to choose. In one the flowers stand out more from the background but there isn’t as much emphasis on the design on the petals. What do you think?
Un-furling
A bracken fern unfurling.Converted to black and white using the Nik plug-in to the GIMP.
I chose this one because it is almost monochrome in green. It’s probably not a fair comparison because the black and white had the background darkened and blurred a bit. Maybe I should go in to the colored one and try to emulate that effect.
Spring Sky
Changing weather viewed over Colvos Passage on Puget Sound.Simple de-saturation using the GIMP’s built-in tool.
I was curious to see what would happen to this photo that doesn’t seem to have much color in it. It was a surprise to see that the black and white feels a bit warmer than the original.
If you are interested in trying out these open source (free!) programs here are a couple of posts that might help: The photo processing tools on my belt.
My pups: Asta and Ginger are almost inseparable.Uncle and niece walking Asta make a pretty cute pair.Dad with my half-sister: Max.A pair of gulls on a rainy day.
These two were taken in black and white very long ago:
Scanned image from long ago: a boy and his dog.Another scanned oldy: the same boy (his name was Watson) with his grandfather, also named Watson.
XingfuMama 