B&W conversions are driving me crazy

Need tips on how to improve these.

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Do you have the originals still? Try posting those and people can mess around with it and give you idea.

It looks to me as though the lights and darks are very harsh, maybe too much contrast? What program are you using?

I will post the originals a little later today. I was editing in CS2. For the first one, I was trying to retain some of the clouds in the sky while getting the giraffes right.

Yeah post the originals

buddy4344 wrote in post #9433501
I will post the originals a little later today. I was editing in CS2. For the first one, I was trying to retain some of the clouds in the sky while getting the giraffes right.

Sometimes you need to use curves or mask an area to work on things separately. I was working on a snow leopard image I took and I made 2 layers of it and worked on both separately. I used the background from one and the subject from the other and blended the layers. You can try a similar technique.

id like to see a darker sky.... that might help. im not that good at b&w but i love dark skys. makes things pop i think

I did a quick edit on the second shot. See if it works for you.

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