Black-and-White Photo. Image Processing and Photo Composition. Conversion of a Color Image into a Black-and-White One.
Processing of Photos
While writing this article, I had an intention to begin with a theory of composition arrangement, but it turned out that the material was so voluminous that I decided to split the initial article in two different ones. That is why you will see here only the second part of the article on the processing of photo images, the first part yet to follow as a separate article.
For now, I’m going to tell you about the ‘crash course’ of how to improve the composition of a photography, and how to convert a color image into a contrast black-and-white one with the correct distribution of the light contrast. Let’s set aside a theory of composition arrangement for the next issue.
Once upon a time, in the vicinity of the city of Minsk, where I was visiting a museum of ancient Russian culture, I came across an old windmill. Having had no time for pondering over the situation, I was forced to work with the instruments which were on me. It was a sunny day, but in an instant it had become clear for me, as the sun in the sky, that the future shot would be black-and-white. There was a little haze over the place – the threat of all landscape artists – and that's why the colors came out to be very dull. The color of the sky was particularly dull. There were some trees in the background of the windmill, to crown it all. All in all, having considered the opportunities, I set the polarizing filter and took a shot of the place as a panorama.
It is not too hard a task in the given case to join all the frames in one single photo, as long as there are no perspective distortions. The goal could be easily achieved by applying the layers and the mask mode. For a detailed review see the first of the articles: it was entitled “Composite photos and digital photo processing” and dedicated to the basics of photo processing in Adobe Photoshop.
Here is the result of the composition of the frames:
First of all, let's take the trees and overall composition of the photo. To improve the composition of the photo, we are going to apply a set of tools which can be useful while working over the city landscapes, in order that we want to get the level of the buildings a little lower.
1. Double the layer with the photo.
2. Create a mask.
3. Set the 'Opacity' value for the new layer at 50%.
4. Pull the new layer down under the other layers.
5. Double the layer and 'cut up' the border of the windmill more accurately in the newly created layer by means of a mask.
Mask area for the layer with the accurately cut up border of the windmill:
Now, we have two layers. Let's merge them, and then correct the trees in the background by means of the 'Clone Stamp Tool'.
1. Pick the 'Clone Stamp Tool' instrument.
2. Press the 'Alt' button (you'll see the cursor marked as a 'target') and pick the area where from you are going to clone the texture of the trees.
3. Release the 'Alt' button, and copy over the desired area the newly picked tree texture by pressing the left mouse button.
4. Align the brush size by means of “[” and ”]”buttons or press the right mouse button, and a menu with the adjustments will appear near the brush.
You can see that the right side of the sky is rather far from being perfect. Let's fix it. For this task we can use a pack of shots with picturesque clouds, which we took that same day in other places. Cover the desired part of the sky with a new photo, and remove incongruent borders by means of a mask. The new sky is ready!
In the given case the treetops are deliberately left intact, so that the picture wouldn't seem way too artificial, and the sharp borderline between the sky and the earth would look plain and natural. Now, let's accentuate the windmill in the composition.
1. Pick the 'Crop Tool' instrument.
2. Set the aspect ratio for 3x2.
3. Change the area of the photo.
The new area of photo is made with the application of “The thirds principle” and considering the checkpoints.
Setting the aspect ratio for 16x9 could also be of some interest, but the format of '3x2' fits better in the A4 paper format, which is a standard for printing.
Let's now turn to the processing of the photo by turning it into a black-and-white image.
We are going to use master layers in Photoshop CS4 to complete this task.
Conversion of Photo into Black-And-White Mode
In black-and white photo, a fine contrast in the image is the thing of high value. In film photo the effect could be achieved with the help of the filters which can be screwed to the lens. They give different level of contrast to the image. E.g., the most powerful in its action is the dark-red light filter, the yellow one, in its turn, having the softest effect. The latest two versions of Adobe Photoshop (CS3 and CS4) there is an instrument which emulates the effects of the light filter.
Yet, it's worth mentioning that using the light filters emulation to get the black-and-white photo from the color one may lead to the emerging of digital noises in the image. You can have an experiment, trying to apply these filters to your photos, and at once you'll get the notion of what can happen with the image in different modes.
Let's now return to the photo processing.
First of all, we must use the red filter emulation and rise the contrast of the image ('Brightness/Contrast' option) to see how it affects the photo:
We can see that the picture has become more contrast, but when zooming it in, the noises will become visible; yet in the area of the meadow covered with flowers everything looks OK. In addition, the overexposed areas in the sky have become clearly visible. Let's use a mask and leave only that part which is needed.
Now let's apply the green filter emulation, which is softer and doesn't give much digital noise.
As long as a part of the image has already been black-and-white, the effect of the layer with the green filter emulation will spread on the colored part of the photo only.
Let's now adjust the distribution of the light contrast in the image. Remove the parts where the picture looks completely black by means of a mask. In our case this area is that of the trees.
Let us turn now to the process of ‘shutting down’ the sky. For a closer review of the process see the first article, “Composite photos and digital photo processing”.
Copy the layer with the original photo and put it above the layer which raises the contrast. The new layer should have the 'Multiply' parameter, and 'Fill': 70%.
The meadow area had become too dark; we have to remove the redundant part of the layer by means of a mask, leaving only the sky area behind.
Let's rise the contrast level a little (Brightness/Contrast: +25), and add a little toning, which will heighten the contrast of the image a little more, and the first step of the photo processing is over.
Photo Correction
In order to make the work easier, we'll merge the layers and have the picture saved as a new file. As for me, the toning is way too strong – the blues are too much. Let's add once more the combination of layers, which for the first part will decolorize the image (the parameters must be set to the 'Default'), and then will make it toned, but not so much as before. We might not apply the toning to the image in the first part, or turn the layers off, but we also could skip the step at all, as it wouldn't affect much the image as a whole, but instead it would raise the contrast a little.
The values in 'the toning level' have been decreased:
We can clearly see that there are some very dark areas, and overall photo looks dark as well. Use the “Dodge Tool” with the following parameters: 'Range: Shadows' and 'Exposure: 10%'.
Use the 'Brush' tool on the dark areas of the photo, and they will be getting brighter. The 'Exposure' value is set to 10% in order to achieve a softer effect (it is better to 'brush' the dark area for some time than to face a sharp change in the hue). Anyway, you can raise the value up to 30 or 50% in order to make the effect more visible. If you get to make some bright areas of the photo even brighter, switch the 'Range' value to 'Midtones', and then only the middle tones of the image will become brighter. Thus, the 'Highlights' value affects the areas of bright light. The 'Burn Tool' instrument has an opposite effect on the photo – it darkens the needed areas of the image.
Before (upper picture)/After (lower picture) – the effect of the manually applied 'Dodge Tool' instrument:
Now, let's make use of the original image. We need the original image to remove the areas of strong overexposure and the darkened shadows, where the details were lost due to the raise of contrast. It is worth mentioning that it will be impossible to improve the darkest areas of the photo by means of the 'Dodge Tool'; particularly it concerns the areas in which the details had been lost, and the shadow area became pitch black. That is why we are going to cover these dark places with the original photo, where the details can be discerned.
The layer with the original photo must be placed under the 'toning' layer, and the layer which converts the photo into black-and-white one. The layer must also have the 'Screen' parameter, and 'Fill' value set to 80% (for a softer effect). Pick the needed areas of the photo by means of a mask.
Here you can see the 'masked' area:
Before (left picture)/After (right picture):
Now we have to make brighter the right side of the sky, so that the photo would look more solid, and to raise a little the brightness of the photo. This can be achieved by means of standard features, such as 'Brightness/Contrast', but this also can be done using layers with 'Screen' parameter, and a mask. This way is easier, but it should be mentioned that it will dramatically affect the resulting *.psd file in Photoshop, and should be used for quick photo processing only.
Here you can see the 'masked' area (without red color):
Before (left picture)/After (right picture):
Add a layer. Then brighten the photo a little. The mask is used to exclude the areas where the overexposition is possible.
Now let's add some final touches to the image. Let's create a 'Brightness/Contrast' master layer, and correct by means of a mask the contrast of the clouds in the right side of the photo.
Now, we have finished processing the photo. As the result we have a black-and-white photo with the correctly distributed brightness all over the shot.
As usual, you can see the *.psd files with full history of photo processing.
