Simple Steps in Photography
Changing colour photos to black and wite is pretty simple. They involve many different techniques to look at. Here are a few that can be helpful to teens.
1) Moody Landscapes- Picking a good landscape and being able to turn it into black and white is the main point of moody. Also wanting to be drawn to something in the picture other than the obvious scene. (Tutorial on black and white soon)Ex. When shooting a besutiful waterfall, instead of leaving a lonely tree out, keep it within the picture because it gives a moody unusual look.
2) Minimal Landscapes-Black and white also work with little conversions such as a minimal landscape. This gives the picture a simplistic look allowing the photgrapher free reign to do as they please with this scene.
3) Urban Landscapes-The lights reflecting from a window gives the picture a sense of shading. Also a softer dusk lighting will interplay with the shadows from the surrounding area.
4) Low-key Mono Shots-Keep the shadows in this picture. Low-key allows the shadow to show the dark side of a person unlike High-key. Ex. Photographing a person can be difficult, but when doing so take the photo as a close up to their face, and it brings a striking pose to the person.
5) High-key Mono- Take the photograph in a lighter area. This will give a "fake" look to the picture.Ex. a young girl in a white blouse against a white screen. Her face and neck look like they are almost emerging from the background.
6) Creative Grain- Perfect gradutation is the keep part of being creative. Without it, the images are far less engaging to the eye.
7) The Distresses Look-Look at the appropriate subjects as the main image. Start with a texture library.
How to:
step 1) open a phootograph and add textural layers on top, but switched off. Then convert the image to mono using an Adjustmeny Layer.
step 2) Turn on the first textural layer. Change the Blending Mode to suit (vivid light worked well here) and then turn on the others.
step 3) Finish the image by varying the opacity of each texture by playing around with the Opacity slider in the Layers palette.
8) Mono at Night-Shooting at night creates captivating and powerful imagery, but with it being in black and white, it is even more compelling. One of the biggest problems is an orange sodium lighting.
HIGH LIGHT FUN FACT!!
There will need to be an increase in your ISO setting if your shot contains movement. Try shutter 1/30 sec and 30 secs, and make sure you carry a tripod.
9) Abstracts- Shooting modern architecture is a great way to get anstract mono, because most of the work has been done by the architect. You must convert the image tp mono and try to adjust the tone of the image.
10) Solarisation-This is a more challenging technique, and only works on certain black and white photos. It is a quirky pop art, and may casue strange things to happen to the image itsself. Ex) Oily surreal interpretation.
How to:
step 1) To start the solarisation process, first convery the image to black and white using a Black and White Adjustment Layer.
step 2) Once you've done that, open a Curves Adjustment LAyer and insert a control point halfway along the line.
step 3) Now grab the point slider bottom left and push it all the way to the top, making a U shape.
11) SplitTone-This adds to subtly add colour tints to what is essentially a mono image. This effect can give a classy unusual look. Try converting the image to black and white then add a Colour Balance Adjustment Layer in photoshop to add any colour desired within the photo.
12) Infrared- This is a strange effect by blocking out
Photo Fixing is also a huge part in taking pictures.
Tip 1: Graduate with ease
Tip 2: Slow things down
Tip 3: Top tips for landscapes