Black and White Styles

[suse]

Hi

Recently converted to digital and photoshop (CS). I've spent a while trying to develop my black and white processing skills, and while I'm getting the hang of b/w detail and edginess, I have yet to work out other styles.

In particular I was trying to create a look that has a gentle, subtle technique. I spotted a guy doing t'ai chi in our public gardens and took a load of shots of him. But when I process them, they come across as a bit too dark and edgy to fit the subject matter. I wanted something more elegant/delicate in the colouring.

Can anyone help? I've put the images up on http://www.pbase.com/sjwhite/tai_chi

[Baadil]

Do you have the color images available? Someone might be able to show you better convertions if they have access to the color images.

[suse]

Hi

Thanks, good idea. Yes, I've now added a couple of originals to the bottom of the pbase gallery.

Sue

[Baadil]

How about this, any better?

[suse]

It's definitely an improvement - what did you do, apply lens blur round him? My only concern would be that some of the detail from the guy has gone and he fades into the grass more. It definitely looks smoother though. Thanks.

[Baadil]

I tried that quickly and didn't pay very much attention to details.... here is what I did,

Selected the background up to and including black line (water)?
Feathered the selection by 5 pixels
Copied the select onto its own layer
Added a Layer Mask
Filled the mask with B/W Gradient. This will help the blur and make it less blur to more instead of full blur.
Used Gaussian Blur Filter on the new lay, (I think15-20 points)
used the blur tool to add a bit more blur where needed
Changed the mode to Lab
Copied the Lightness Channel
Changed Mode to RGB
UnSelected all channels except lightness (copy)
Selected All and copied
Select RGB Channel and pasted.

These may seem like lots of steps but when you do them once or twice, they should go very quickly.
Also, as I said I didn't pay very muh attention to details so my selections we very rough. You could make sure that none of the blur touches the guy.

Hope this helps.