I experimented with black and white processing using the pictures I took of my love and peace rose yesterday for this week’s mid-week monochrome. The raindrops stand out more strongly in black and white.
The photos were all taken with a Sony RX10iv camera, iso 100 and aperture ranging from 4 to 6.3, focal length of 8.8mm (24 in 35mm equivalent). I use Raw Therapee to convert the raw files to images and do the initial edits then switch to the GIMP to do final editing, including the conversion to 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.
Sometimes it is the close ups that give you a real sense of place:
Shadows and textures really make the carving below. I think it looks more dramatic in black and white. The colors distract.
A Maori carving in a meeting house at the treaty grounds in Waitangi.
We spent a couple of weeks, amazing, delightful weeks, on the north island of New Zealand last January. It feels like more than 11 months ago. We were able to see our son over the Chinese New Year. He went back and while he was in the air going back the state department sent out its “do not travel to China” message. (I have some very pithy ideas about the US state department.)
Seeing him again is not in the cards in the foreseeable future, so I am sooo happy that we had that time right before everything closed down.
My rose is about done now after a windy, rainy week and last light the wind changed and it’s gotten fairly chilly. Still it was a nice little bloom. I’ve been playing with different ways to use the picture of it.
Here are a couple of different black and white treatments. One on the lighter side and one on the darker side.
Nik collection Antique plate II effect.
Nik collection pinhole effect.
My rainy day rose in black and white.
From the basic image to a partial sepia effect applied in the GIMP.
Since last February I’ve been experimenting a lot with different photo processing methods. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at different ways of creating and using monochrome…you’d think it would be simpler in black and white. But there are so many different ways to take the color out and adjust the light and dark that it seems harder than plain old color. Lately I’ve been rather liking applying the monochrome partially or overlaying the monochrome and color photos with different layer blend modes.
If you take an interest in different photo processing methods you might like to take a look at the one-to-three photo processing challenge, on my other website.
