Beach pathway

Thanks to you all for stopping by and for your comments. They are truly appreciated.

Chris, I think this one is the best from the whole series but is probably because I lost ten times more time on this conversion than I did on both before :) Funny you mentioned the dark grass against the sand because that was my control point on the conversion. I guess that I thought that if those two elements look good enough all the rest would look almost balanced.

I'm loving this learning process on b&w conversion but 90% of the time I kind of get the felling that I'm not in control of the final result :) I completely agree with you when you say that the key is most of the times a good colour shot as starting point. I sincerely think that is the "secret ingredient" but I must also say that no Gorman's method or any other will suffice for a definitive conversion process. Every single shot acts like an independent entitie where sometimes one step can be useful and some other times can be a disaster. Just MHO of course.

Thank you again for your guidance and time on this b&w "mind maze". I guess this kind of things is what makes PN worth while no matter what :) "See" you around.

Rui, this one was worth the time. It's really good. And you handled the dark grass and light sand well. You may have discovered a good general principle there, too: Pick out a pair of important parts of the photo and work to make them look right. Then most of the parts (we hope) will just naturally fall into place. If the photo is a portrait, put most or all of your attention into getting the face tones to look good.

~ no Gorman's method or any other will suffice for a definitive conversion process. Every single shot acts like an independent entitie ~

Yes, exactly! That's what makes it still an art, even though we're using a computer instead of a darkroom.

I think that for some shots, we need to not be perfectionists, or we will end up spending 98% of our time in PS and only 2% taking photographs. But also, as your experience grows, you will develop quicker methods and the amount of time needed for trial and error will decrease. For example, given your experience with this one, the next time you need to convert a shot of a seaside on a cloudy day, the work will be much quicker. (I hope!)