Sunday, May 20, 2018

Capturing the "glow" in digital of old black and white prints

In a prior post I shared my updated understanding of how to make digital black and white images look like beautiful old silver halide prints.

For this post I would like to share a few images that illustrate what is possible.  Since I used multi-coated AF optics, I needed to preserve the highlights in the way I described in that earlier post.

Here is a window scene.  I used a Sony NEX-5T and Sony 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 SEL OSS.  The image was grabbed "on the fly" as my wife and I walked some of the backstreets of Bordeaux.

Bordeaux ~ 2018 in B&W


In the following image I wanted to see how much dynamic range the old Sony NEX-5T sensor could provide.  Using the Sony 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 SEL OSS I was able to isolate something interesting from a complex environment.

What surprises me is how much "luminosity" is retained in this midday scene in a Bordeaux cemetery.  The highlights are creamy beautiful.  The shadows show good detail.  I did no burning or dodging.  This was created taking the out of camera file and applying the "glow" process.

I see that pure white and pure black aren't important.  Simple darks and lights and their relationship to each other, those are what can make an image "work".  As a test of this idea while processing this image I put the blacks as pure black and the whites as pure white.  It just didn't look right.  The sense of "luminosity" and warmth and "glow" was lost.  Welcome, I said to myself, to the world of grey.

Bordeaux ~ 2018 in B&W


Lastly, here is a quiet little scene, this time from inside a church in Bordeaux.  I used a Sony A5000 and a pretty little Sigma 30mm f/2.8 EX DN E.  In processing I burned-in the stone arch to help make the light from baptismal font room become the central point of attention.  And since I felt it was too grey I used the contrast slider then to help make the image "pop".

It was pretty simple, actually.  A light touch on the sliders and image processing functions while following the "glow" process brings this to life.

Bordeaux ~ 2018 in B&W



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