Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

After blurring all problems with density shift were gone as the whole is masks disappeared. I used this to lighten and increase contrast of the corn field.
So using this two blurred masks I created my final pwp version of the image. It was done in 15min so it still has a bit to the perfection, but I knew I was on good road.

Based on color separation in HSL mode I created this mask for corn field. The result was that in brings strange denisty shift in the middle of corn field.

After I saw Daniel's masks I used my detail mask and blurred it heavily (could be done more) You can see the result I used this mask for darkening sky as well for increasing it contrasts.

This is the kind of mask I am always using this one is created based on color separation in HSL mode. Allows me to separate sky, but left those artifacts as you saw in detailed crop in earlier images.

And finally 1:1 crop from version where HSL was not used. Simple color mixer and than masking for selective contrast increase where used. No artifacts and now strange color tones between corn branches. All seems to be fine. Important is how to make mask correct. I normally used very detail mask which I expand by feather and blur with little Gaussian blur. Based on masks Daniel is using I did something which resulted in interesting aproach. Daniel is doing quick mask by hand using tablet. I am far from that kind of perfection ;-) But thanks to him I found my own way.

In this 1:1 crop from my image converted in pwp artifacts are terribly pronounced. It is certainly thanks to increased darkening of the sky. The separation based on color in HSL mode can leave these kind of side effects. And this is the point I mentioned at the start of this experiment. So this is the difficult image for HSL conversion. Even it can work in different images well, for this is very difficult if not impossible.

1:1 Crop from my lightroom version. You see a little white artifacts on right side of each top corn branch. In 1:1 crop is visible so it will be on print.

This is 1:1 crop of converted image in version from 2004. No artifacts but contrast is low and whole image is very flat. Just a side note: Image is not sharp as it has focus on building and not on corn filed. That is not important for the moment. Please look at next three crops from different version.

This version is based on aproach from Daniel Staver. First conversion from color to black and white was done simple with color mixer. And second using masks the part of image were dodged and burned. The key here is creation on masks. More about that in last four images of this series.

Based on color to black and white work flow from lightroom I try to do the same HSL space adjustment in pwp (picture window pro) I think I went quite to the extreme here.Sky is nice dark and foreground has that high contrast spark. But artifacts in foreground where it touches the sky are very pronounced.

This is result of mine color to black and white conversion in lightroom. You need to understand that this was my second day of lightroom usage so I had no experience and I made the adjustment based on video tutorial. But I have spend quite some time with image. Image to my eyes look to dark and without that nice contrasts I like. No dark sky and no highlights in details. I made this version using adjustment in HSL space of color image. I try to keep balance between darkening sky and foreground so I avoid creation of artifacts. These you will see on 1:1 crop in later images in this series.

Quick Daniel Staver version, I believe he works few minutes on it. I was curious how his result will be. He has master The Photoshop techniques to the higher level and I always admire his opinions and craft. Another reason was that I failed to convert this image without artifacts which are visible best in 1:1 crops later in this series.

Original conversion to bw I made using pwp (Picture window Pro) back in 2004. From that time I remember that it was rather complex and difficult. I remember I was splinting color file to three color channels and mixing them back together. I never was fully satisfied with this version, even it takes a longtime.

This is original image, Nikon D70 nef raw file. And you can see its basic color version after lightroom conversion.

As I promised, I just posted my findings about converting color image to black and white in my experiment pages. I spend few days trying things out. Images showed in that page are result of quick conversion only to prove a technique. So do not expect top quality. It was more like prove of concept. I also wanted to underline the fact that some images is more difficult to convert than others. I certainly will try to convert different color images to have more experience and to see what all is possible and what are the constraints.

I have modified this image to my best color to black and white skills to this date. Feel much better now. For more talk about converting digital images from color to black and white read look at my experiment page.
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Original comment from 2004-09-22:
This is a farm house at the end of village where we live. This shot is done using Nikon D70 and converted to b&w. This is my first attempt to do little smarter color to b&w conversion. Info: 1/1000 s, F 5.60, focal length: 34.00 mm

It almost feels like people are worried about my possible move to digital. Absolutely no reaction except email and chat with Dirk and Daniel. Very interesting. Well I do my investigation and will write my thoughts and findings here, if not for anybody than for me as a note for the future.