Snowy Lane

[taffy]

I am attempting some black and white conversions of snow scenes I took the other day.

This is the first one.

Comments welcome.

Taffy:)

[Bambi]

seriously, I can find nothing to nit pick in this.

[JAS_Photo]

Nope, me neither. Beautiful scene!

[Iguanasan]

Very beautiful, Taffy. I'll have to let an expert weigh in but the snow looks a tad over-exposed to me and that's only because I'm searching hard for something to help you make it even better if that's even possible. It's a wonderful image. I love the snow covered trees.

[Mad Aussie]

The composition is nice but it does look like this a colour shot desaturated rather than an actual b&w to me. To my eye it lacks contrast and has way too many grey tones throughout. With much deeper blacks, those blown out whites would become totally acceptable I think.

Also I think b&w's tend to benefit from being very sharp. Without the colour it's all about the textures.

I definitely think this is a good image for b&w though.

How did you go about the conversion?

[taffy]

Thanks MA, you are right there is a lack of contrast.

I originally desaturated the whole image and then lightened / darkened different colour channels, then burned and dodged in the shadows and highlights. This was a technique I had picked up from a magazine.

I have redone the image using PS Elements B&W conversion and boosted the contrast, then burned in the shadows...........hopefully you will be able to see the difference! Let me know what you think.

Taffy:)

[Mad Aussie]

I thought you'd just desaturated the first one which was the main mistake. This 2nd version is much stronger. Nice job :)