Night Illusion on The Glebe

This is my first effort at turning color into black and white with Photoshop. I was

inspired by an article I read on Photo.net and thought I'd play with the techniques a bit.

Some of the trees in the front look very "blown out" to me, but in the color photo they

are denser and more highly colored than the taller trees. Any suggestions for correcting

this, or should I have simply picked another photo?

Comments and suggestions, please..... and thank you.

Is this generated as a negative or an infrared effect? It has that reversed illusion. Seems a bit overdone with the jet black sky and water at left.

Hi Ray - Thanks so much for replying. The original photo above was not a negative; it was a digital color picture taken on a very blue-gray monotone early evening in late November. My first step was to go into Grayscale mode in PS and play with the RGB channels until I decided which one I liked and then converted it to grayscale. (I think it was the red channel; I know it wasn't blue.) I inverted it under the adjustments menu and tried adjusting levels to get more definition in the trees. Perhaps I should have played with levels first and then inverted it? I don't seem to get a lot of variation darkness of the sky and water tones. I'm posting the original photo in my gallery under "Land and Waterscapes." Maybe you or someone else will have a better idea of what I should have done when they see the original. As you can see I cropped a lot of the sky out in the BW version; I felt it was too overwhelming and useless for the composition.

I like the effect -- nicely done, especially for a first attempt. I wish the building was more distinct (darker on the roof and front); that would be my only suggestion.

Stephen-

 

I agree - it would be nice to see the buildings more clearly. There are a barn and some other outbuildings (all dark brown) on the right side hidden in the trees in addition to the white house that shows up dark. I don't have the skill set to manipulate that challenge yet. Thank you for commenting and encouraging. Much appreciated.