Color into Black & White

Black and White Photography is a very special kind of "photography". Now with the digital age, we can shoot in color and transform that image to what pleases our eye. I took this landscape image in Livermore, California. As you can see the original RAW image looks flat, uninterested and boring. But, when ever you shoot, you try to envision how that image will look after is gone through the darkroom (post-production).
The sun was behind me and my settings were iso 200, shutter @125th and fstop @F16. I actually shot it handheld but, the lens was not zoom out. It was @ 75mm. I already knew this was going to be a B&W photograph.

I didn't need to open photoshop to work on this. I knew that I could work straight from Camera Raw. The first thing I did was turn it into grayscale in RAW. I started the process doing a little burning (darkening) in the foreground and some spots in the hills using the adjustment brush. Also, I brighten the shadows in the left barn, so, the door would not look just like a black blob. I increased the clarity and the contrast(just a bit). And to finalize I did a minor vignette around.

This was a pretty simple capture and image to process. One note You really want your images to be captured without any adjustments made in camera, so, you can do them yourself. The final image is in your mind, the camera only helps in capturing it.!

One more thing.. the guys at Digital Photography Cafe
are taking their show on the road to the 2011 PhotoPlus International Convention + Expo.  You can view more info
on this video....