Spinning around!

Not too long ago we were in Holland for a couple of days. Before we went, I drew up a list of photography goals and one of my goals was to shoot a long exposure shot of a mill. Unfortunately the weather was not what I had hoped for. 

Then again, that didn't withhold me from taking some pretty cool shots if I do say so myself. This is one of my favourites.

So how did I do this? 

It's actually pretty easy. First you need a windmill (dooh) and some wind so the windmill is actually spinning. The mill I shot had its sails turning quite slowly. 

I got out my gorilla pod and added an ND filter. With a shutter speed of 30 seconds at F20 I created this shot.

Once back home, I edited the picture in Lightroom. I followed my usual workflow. After that, I imported the picture into Tonality Pro (Macphun) and did some final editing. 

I guess it's a different image of a windmill than the usual Dutch windmill pictures. Do let me know what you think of it.

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Creating HDR with Aurora from Macphun

Totally worth checking out: creating HDR with Aurora HDR from Macphun

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Another Photoshop tutorial: lightening the eyes

There are many ways to lighten the eyes in Lightroom in Photoshop. 

In Lightroom you can do it with a local adjustment (exposure, shadows and sharpen).  But you can also do it in Photoshop. In this blog I'll show you the Quick mask mode to lighten up the eyes and after that I'll show you how to sharpen the eyes.

For this tutorial, I used a picture of Pixabay

 

1. Open the photo in Photoshop
2. Duplicate the background layer (Ctrl/ Cmd J)
3. Hit Q to select the quick mask tool
   
   
   
4. Hit B to select the brush tool and set your front colour to black
5. Paint over the eyes
   
   If you paint outside the eyes, hit the X key. Now you can erase the part that you don't want to be selected. Hit the X key again to select the brush. 
6. If you have selected the eyes and are satisfied with that selection, hit the Q key. Now the eyes have turned into a selection.
   
7. Create a new adjustment layer and choose Curves. 
   
8. Select the white layer mask and invert it (Ctrl / Cmd I). The layer mask is not black and hides everthing excepts the selection (of the eyes)
9. Move the Curves to the left to make the eyes brighter. But don't overdo it, keep it natural. 
   

Now the eyes are a little brighter. There are of course many other ways to select the eyes. But using this quick mask method is very easy and gives good results.

Off to do some sharpening of the eyes now. 

To do this make a stamp visible layer by using CMD OPT SHIFT E on a mac or CTRL ALT SHIFT E on a PC. This creates a separate merged and flattened layer form all visible layers in your layers panel, whilst keeping the original layers intact. Be sure the stamp visible layer is on top.

Select the sharpen tool. 

Now 'paint' over her eyes to sharpen them.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great picture. Even though it was shot slightly from above. 

I did some dodge and burn and I removed some frizzles in her hair. Working on this picture, I got kinda curious to see what this would look like in B/W. So out comes Tonality! 

I really love the way Tonality makes B/W images. I loaded this picture into the Macphun's Tonality Pro to convert it to a B/W portrait. Which one do you prefer? 

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Making a choice: colour or B/W?

I guess it's safe to say that I really like colour in my pictures. 

But more and more I'm seeing the beauty in B/W. Like I said in a previous blogpost, I usually go B/W on an overcast day. But with getting into streetphotography a bit more these days, I'm really starting to like B/W there too! 

Then again, you can take my word for it, but what it all comes down to is a matter of taste. 

 

The colour image has a completely different look and feel to the B/W version. For me it is like B/W draws you into the image whereas the colours in the second image kind of distract. 

And again, with the images below from a street scene in Trondheim (Norway), the colour image has a lot going on in the image. Too much for my taste. I really like the simplicity of the B/W version. 

Since I started using Tonality from MacPhun, I find myself doing a lot more B/W. I just love the way Tonality works. It's easy to use, with the presets and the possibility to work with layers. And the results are just great. Did I already mention that Tonality is compatible with Lightroom? 

This is another example of an image I converted to B/W using Tonality. Added a few radial filters in Lightroom and I blurred the background so all the focus is on the young man, the main subject of the image. 

Then again, B/W is not always an option... 

Or is it? 

So dare to be creative, explore! Convert your images to B/W and see what comes of it.  

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Tonality Pro for awesome B/W images

We promised a while back that we'd tell you a bit more about converting your images to B/W. In a previous post we talked about one way to convert to B/W in Lightroom. Today we're gonna tell you a bit more about using a plugin like Tonality Pro or Silver Efex Pro

Before you get all carried away, do bear in mind that Tonality Pro is a product for MAC, not for Windows. Tonality can be used stand alone, or as plugin for Adobe and Apple products. It also supports RAW. 

It all starts with importing pictures into Lightroom. When your pictures are in Lightroom you have to decide which picture(s) you want to convert to B/W. Choose a picture you want to convert. Personally I always like to do some small adjustments in Lightroom before I transfer to Tonality. But that's entirely up to you as the artist. 

To transfer your picture, right click on the image and choose Edit in... > Tonality pro

Let's take this image for example: 

I just added some contrast, did the shadows and highlights and my black and whites in Lightroom.

Once you choose Edit in Tonality Pro, a screen appears where you can choose to work with a copy or just work with the original. I always work with a copy: 

Click on Edit and your picture appears in Tonality Pro and is converted to B/W:

You've really got tons of possibilities in Tonality Pro!

Presets

A lot of presets you can choose from, for example HDR Cold Silver

If you don't want the effect in the whole picture,  you can decide where to use it using the brush. It works the same as working with brushes in Photoshop, you can change the size, opacity and softness of the brush.

Just brush where you want to create the effect: 

And ofcourse you can also work with Selective Coloring by using presets like for instance Bleached Drama.

Layers

I really love that Tonality Pro has the possibility to work with layers. 

This gives you the possibility to have for example different presets on each layer as well as dodge and burn on every layer.

You can turn off a layer and reduce the Opacity. This works exactly the same as in Photoshop.

And you'll recognize the panel from Lightroom: a panel with items like Color Temperature, Tone, contrast etc.

I find the clarity and structure panel really helpful:

You can add clarity, structure and micro stucture to your global image or do it locally, using the brush. With the Erase Mask you can turn it off. Using the layer panel, you can check out where you'll see the effect is working. It works in a similar fashion as layer masks in Photoshop.

And when you're done with the processing in Tonality, just click on Apply and your picture will be reimported into Lightroom. If needed you can do some more processing there, that's all up to you.

I love Tonality Pro. I think it's a great product and really effective in making stunning B/W images. 

If you wanna have a go, just download the trial version and play around with it. The guys from Macphun are really awesome in their Youtube films if you wanna find out more about the product. 

The best way to learn ofcourse is just do it yourself. Don't be afraid to try! 

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Life without colour. How to create stunning B/W images.

I guess it's a question of taste. And of what I got used to over the years. Most of my work I've done in colour. For me it's the colours that speak out in an image. The colours that draw you towards or even into an image. 

But recently I've started to see the fun and the beauty in black and white images. I still think it tricky to decide when to go black and white though. In our recent trip to Trondheim, I tried my hand at street photography, mainly to see how this would turn out in black and white. 

Street photography is a whole different ballgame and an artform in itself. This is one of the pictures I took in Trondheim, it's ok, but it's definately not eye-popping. Actually kinda boring. 

Just to get started I cropped it using Lightroom and did some small adjustments. Then I edited it in Tonality (mac only) and voila! A whole new picture, now the people in the picture came to life! Gone is the dull grey and brownness of the colour version! 

I love Tonality for converting images to black and white. And I think it's really cool that it has the possibility to work with layers. For those of you not too familiar with Tonality, I'll write a tutorial some time soon! 

Tonality has a good compatibility with Lightroom. So when you're done in Tonality, you can edit it even more in Lightroom. Another option is to use Silver Efex Pro to convert your images to black and white. And ofcourse you can also do it without a plugin and just use Lightroom to make an awesome black and white image. 

The end result is a picture with more focus on the main subject and the boring colors are gone. Impact is a lot bigger now.

But still: when to go from colour to black and white? The day I tried my hand at street photography it was a cloudy day. And this works actually really well for black and white. Check out some more examples of my day in Trondheim: 

The key to a stunning black and white image is the contrast and variation in black and white. Black and white is more than just two colours in your picture. Black and white is contrast, sharpness and different shades of black and white. Here's another example from Trondheim:  

 

I loved the reflection on the ground but this didn't work in the colour version of the image. Again, it was a dull image with no depth or atmosphere. When going black and white, the reflection that caught my eye in the first place, really popped out. And the whole atmosphere in the picture now reflected what I first felt when taking the shot. 

So bottomline is: go black and white for a reason. Don't cheat yourself with going black and white because you think black and white solves all that doesn't work in the colour version. This video of Serge Ramelli. has been a great inspiration to me for starting (again) with black and white. I love the way Serge explains things.

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