The first image I selected for this exercise was taken in St Mary’s Graveyard during the Goth festival. I feel that this image will suit a high contrast approach, even though there will be clipping in both highlights and shadows.
Resting Goth
200 mm, 1/160 sec, f/6.3
I converted the Raw file to Tiff without any alterations to the original settings, then opened it in Photoshop.
In Photoshop I used a threshold adjustment layer to set the black and white points, then a curves adjustment layer with a very steep mid curve to create the high contrast colour image below:
Some of the detail has been lost here and there’s obviously a significant amount of clipping. I’m not really taken with this version, but taking it into Black and White has a lot more potential. For this step I used the B&W adjustment layer.
This version now works very well for me. There’s an entirely different feel to the image. What was an entertaining image has now become one portraying despair and loss.
For the second image I’ve chosen one of children playing in the sea. I considered this a good candidate for ‘high key’ treatment.
Water babes
This was a very hazy day, so a lot of the background was very light before any adjustments. I converted the Raw file in Lightroom, increasing the exposure so that the background faded to white, then using the adjustment brush to lighten the foreground.
This treatment certainly makes the water look more appealing. The remit was to lighten the whole image – I’d have been tempted to increase the contrast around the children to further enhance this image.
Taking the image into Black and White, using the Photoshop B&W adjustment layer has produced a more pleasing result, but I think the colour version could be better with that extra adjustment.
I think this image works because of the horizontal line of children which stands out in the light background.
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