Does this b/w conversion look okay to you?

I have been practicing b/w conversions because my first ones when using Picasa

looked blah. I desaturated, added curves, and played with the channel mixer,

then added a vignetting effect. Does it look alright to you?<div></div>

I love it for the most part. The boys left side looks to dark though.

Amy, I do a lot of b/w work and I would be happy with this conversion.

Amy could we see the origional too? I do like the picture though.

I like it...i agree with Erik...little dark on his left. You might try to burn or dodge a little.

 

Dave

I think it is a wonderful shot as is, but, since you are asking for a critique here is my 2 cents. I agree that the left side of your subject is a little dark, specifically the left shoulder gets a little lost with the dark step near the doorway. My experience tells me that this will most likely be darker if your client gets prints done on their own (assuming you provide them with JPEG images - all assumptions here.) One solution may be to lighten the walkway and step in the color version of the photo before converting. You mentioned you desaturated before using channel mixer. Since you are using the channel mixer you may be better served doing your conversion there. Meaning, with the color photo, select channel mixer and check the monochrome box in the lower left corner - this gives you a b/w all the same. Plus it allows you to easily jump back to the color photo by un-checking the box to fine tune the walkway to make his jacket stand out a little more. Just a thought.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I will have to learn how to do somemore stuff in PS. Here is the b/w edited via Picasa and what was given(this was a wedding from May, but I am working on the images for my website, now that I can do much better post processing) I am still looking for the color version.<div></div>

Aha, found the original Raw file. Yikes, here it is no editing what so ever...<div></div>

Looks very good, Amy. All good observations from other posters too. I would also go easy on burning the top of his head ;) In addition to the channels monotone conversion method, you could also look into the hue/saturation method. If you are using CS and above, there is also the Calculations method. Lab mode conversion as well. Personally, I use the hue/sat method the most for my work. Shoot me an email if you would like more information. Have fun! M :)

Ah yes, the dark stain on the walkway is evident now by the shoulder. Try selecting the walkway and lightening it first (perhaps increase brightness and reduce contrast), then perform the conversion using any of the described methods. Or even try cloning out the walkway stains with samples from other parts of the walkway - or better yet replace the walkway with a different texture... the list goes on. I bet the result will be very nice. But like I said, I think it is a great photo regardless.

This is what I was mentioning. Mind you, I only spent about 2 minutes and it shows;)

Thanks Todd. I have not got that far in PS yet to learn how to do that : p I will have to play some more with it...