Tutorial & DIY: High Contrast Black & White (Photoshop)

Howdy! Let’s keep playing with our pictures! One of my favourite ways to finish a photo is in a strong black and white with a lot of contrast, depth and a dash of sepia toning. And I get a lot of questions on how to do it, too. So, here we go!

This tutorial is for Photoshop users at this time.

Some colleagues and I were joking recently that, if there’s something you want to do in Photoshop, there are no fewer than 600 ways to get there. Yes, we’re a witty, fun and insatiable bunch! No ‘nerd alert’ required here, eh?!

But it’s true, and arriving at a nice black and white photo conversion is no exclusion. This is my preferred way for my personal photos; I find it fast, easy to remember and extremely visual and hands on, which is perfect for finessing the final details before saving.

We’re going to go from this (left) to this (right). Er.. I hope you don’t fall asleep like Isla did.

We’re going to work in Fill / Adjustment Layers, which is the ying/yang looking circle at the bottom of your layers window. It also looks like an Oreo dipped and milk and makes me hungry every time.

Click on that (yummy, delicious double stuffed-I-bet) Oreo and that menu will pop up. My easy faves to hang out in are in the second and third section down. Start by clicking ‘Black & White’ to get the above. I leave the settings as they are, but sometimes I play. Every photo is different. If you wanted to play, you would adjust those sliders under ‘ADJUSTMENTS’.

Next, click Brightness/Contrast.

It is here where I reveal myself to have OCD; I typically adjust to base increments of five, and I typically double my contrast as a rule of thumb to whatever my brightness was at. I’m also mentally capable of adjusting this practice should the photo need it. Swearsies.

The point is to adjust the sliders to increase or decrease the light and contrast as you see fit.

Next you’re going to want to play with curves. I typically make a little ‘S’ with my curve bar. Rather than start in the middle, I pick two points on either end and gently adjust them up or down. Here’s where the depth starts to fold into the batterrrrrr… (Clearly, I have baked goods on the brain. My apologies.)

You could stop here, and that would be just dandy. But if you’d like a little colour wash to your image, click Photo Filter and get playing with the various tones available. I’ve selected Sepia and changed it to a 30% opacity. Just enough to warm the walls and heart alike.

The finishing touch is to flatten your layers and touch up your lines. Before you flatten (see Layer>Flatten Image), you can always go back through to make further adjustments.

Ta-da!

Now, please excuse me while my heart explodes and/or I go find a snack…

xo, Tamara

31 August 16 Permalink

More on BOKEH with a pinch of auto focus

Here are some notes connecting bokeh with auto focus and how the two can become trademark tools. I should add that I rarely manual focus anymore and only do when my subject is stationary. With a baby, nuh-uh. Hasn’t happened yet. But it’s a personal choice, and an option most lenses afford you with. 

Auto focus is when you half-press the shutter to reveal focus points. The camera will usually beep or the focus point may even blink telling you your focal point is locked. It’s then you press the shutter fully and the picture is snapped. With a large f/stop (small aperture), many focus points will show up as everything in the foreground and background will be sharp. With a small f/stop (large aperture), you may only get one or two. And even then, your camera will need to determine something of contrast before it locks a focal point. 

For example, the camera auto focused on Isla’s eyes, nose and lips. Once it locked, I clicked and got this shot featuring blur on both arms and down onto her romper. 

1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 800

See? A closer look…

Now, if you hold your finger in the half-press, you can lock the focus and reposition the camera, therefore recomposing the shot. This is key when using a small f/stop to get a large aperture for lots of yummy bokeh blur. 

That’s how I got this while we were just hanging on the couch:
1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 800
When I first half-pressed the shutter, the focus points rested on her toy. I then shifted the entire camera to point directly at Isla, half-pressed so her eye and ear were highlighted, kept my finger half-pressed on the locked focus and turned back to frame the shot this way. 
A closer look…

Even if bokeh is beyond old news to you and all “Camera 101” that has you rolling your eyes in the back row, take this week to play around with aperture either in manual or aperture priority. Once you know inside and out your sweet spots of blur, taking pictures on the fly without scratching your head over f/stops is in your future. Totally. A little birdie even told me so.

25 May 5 Permalink