Exercise 34 – Colours into tones in black and white

I’m obviously using digital cameras for the whole of the module. For this exercise I’ve used the Nikon D300s with the Nikkor 18-200 mm VR lens.

The Black and White filters used were the presets within Photoshop

Original Image.

The objects I chose for this still life are watercolours paints (including palette, tubes and inktense sticks), wax crayons, threads and coloured card. I printed my own mid – grey paper using Photoshop.

Black and White – No filter

Black and White – Yellow filter

With this filtration, the yellows have become almost white. It’s interesting to note that colours which contain yellow (particularly the oranges and browns) have become lighter. The blues and greens seem to have become darker, but this may be due to the relative tones.

Black and White – Red filter

The reds have become while the yellows have now returned to their original shade. Again, the orange and browns have become lighter, due to their red content.

Black and White – Blue filter

This filter produced the expected results, where the blue card and blue bands on the tubes became almost white. Some blues (cotton and inktense sticks) still retain some darker tone, possibly due to mixtures of other colours.

Black and White – Green filter

As expected, most of the greens have become much lighter – the exceptions being the cotton, tube and inktense stick which have become lighter, but not as much as the card.

This exercise has emphasised the different shades of the various colours which don’t always agree with the ‘pure’ colours of the filters. Other than that, I’ve not gained much from the exercise. The use of the sliders in the Black and White adjustment layer of Photoshop was already known and well used by me. I’ve also used the filters with film cameras back in the days of my darkroom. Still – it’s been an interesting exercise.