Untitled

Mosque door in Istanbul. I left sign in color and desaturated rest

of pic in PS

This isn't a good B&W, blacks should be deeper. Why didn't you left the colors on the rest of the image...?

You're right ... The B & W should be a bit more contrasty and the blacks deepened. That is because I took the simple route of desaturating the color portion rather than using a layer mask and levels to do it. Laziness on my part, I'm afraid. As for why the rest isn't in color, it's because I took a lot like this and was a little bored by them and looking to experiment with something new. I'm not a professional, just a rank beginner and I'm trying to do new things. It works for me and it doesn't for you and that's ok. In fact, that's why we have a forum!

Bill, I completely agree with your reasons for leaving that in color. I think it works. Did you also try desaturating everything except what's behind the door? I think that might be neat as well. I am a big fan of isolated color. And you are so right. Sometimes, I wind up with 10 or 20 or more pictures that are basically the same & rather than select one that stands out, I force one to stand out by playing with it.

Great photo. two criticisms. First, it is too big to display on my monitor. Second, I wish I knew what it said. Aesthetically, I am happy with the color and the BW together, but making the calligraphy stand out makes me wonder what it says. BTW, did you change this? Because the blacks look awfully black to me. I hope you realize that the criticisms are irrelevant to the high quality of this photo.

Hi. First, thanks for the compliments. You're right about the size issue. I resize all my photos to 1000 pixels wide before I post them. But, for vertically orientated pics, it's still too big. I tried making them 1000 pixels tall, but thought they were too small. I'll play around and post new ones at a smaller size. As for the translation, it's over a mosque door so you can be assured it is something Koranic about the glory of Allah and Mohammed. It would be nice to have a translation though. Lastly, I never change pictures after I post them. Even if I misspell a word in the frame (there's at least two), I figure that once people have commented on it, I shouldn't mess with it.

The meaning of the script would be 'I testify that there is no other god but Allah and I also testify that Muhammed is his servant and his messenger.'

Thanks Omer! I knew that when they include all the vowels in the script, it is usually a quatation from the Koran, but it's nice to know which one.