I wanted to highlight the part of the shot I liked best since I couldn’t frame around the bits I didn’t like.  I used the same technique from here to remove the color from the rest of the shot.  Simple, geometric.  Railroad lines – I’m always trying to frame those.

End of the Line is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

C’mon – there’s a face in that, right?  He’s even got a different color for one eye.  That’s great stuff!  But yeah.  A sink.  I just liked it.  Getting a little photography wonky, it was a dark tour.  I took it with my 50mm, which goes down to 1.8, but when you’re being jostled by the crowd, you don’t have a lot of time to set up or a tripod, so you get what you can and I liked how this came out.  With low light, you can often lose some color, which made me want to try it in black and white.  Hit the jump to see that one!

For this I feel like it lost some of the charm of the color version, but it’s more dramatic with extra contrast.  I’m kinda on the fence.  The other is more playful, but B&W just sort of suits the theme, don’t you think?  Which one do you like?

Someone Has Got Some Cleaning To Do is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Most of the time when I take a picture and decide to process it into a B&W image, it’s because it either has really strong lines and contrast or it has very little in the way of color to start.  That was what I found here:

You like reading all of my jabbering?  Click the link for more:

In this case, turning this into black and white seemed to actually add impact and the difference was somewhat subtle.  As soon as I dropped out the color, I started thinking about the contrast, the shadows, and making things pop.  Lightroom has pretty good workflow for this kinda stuff so it only took a couple minutes.  The picture I had in my head all of a sudden appeared – all I needed was a little less color.

Oh – I kinda neglected to say it before, but what you’re looking at isn’t a ghost town or an abandoned building – it’s the back of my new garage.  I think I see a few weekends in my near future!

Last point about black and white images vs color.  Many cameras have a setting where you can “take an image in black and white”.  This is a pretty bad idea.  When you take a picture, the camera has a lot of information.  If you have a DSLR and save the image as a RAW file, you keep it all.  If you save it as a JPG, the camera does its best to make a good image and discards the rest.  If you save it as a black and white picture, the camera even discards the color information.  It’s always easy to discard it later, but why lose it all up front if you don’t need to?  You and your photo software of choice will do a better job later.

Ghost Town or New House is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

For all the new, there is still some old.  Down in Seaport Village, the Marriott Hotel is still going strong.  As much as those new buildings might look nice, this is the only one I wanted to take pictures of.

Since it’s all geometry and lines and shapes, I think it turned out pretty well in black & white. Color isn’t bad either, but this got my vote.

Black, White and Modern is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Only thing is, I can’t for the life of me remember what kind of car it was attached to.  Anyone know at least the make if not the model?  C’mon you car buffs out there – show me what you got!

Getting back to the photo nerd thing, the bokeh is nice.  With so many symmetrical reflections I really like the pattern across the top of the hood.    This image has been chopped up a bit and I don’t have the original so I don’t have the EXIF information, but I’m pretty sure I took this with my 50mm lens just because you can count the number of diaphragm blades that make up the aperture – 5, just like the 5 sided bursts of light you get in this picture.

Classic Cars From The Vault is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

• Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate
• Image -> Mode -> Grayscale

Want to learn about a few more choices, by all means, click for the rest of the post.

If you are staring down the barrel of a copy of Photoshop CS4, you’ve got a brand new option which used to take a whole lot of screwing around.  Do you know how to use the Channel Mixer? I can muddle through, but I’m not happy about it. I’ll attempt to show you how to use that one at the bottom. Those of you who recently “upgraded”, welcome to the dedicated Black and White tool! To get here, you’re going to want to hit Image -> Adjustments -> Black & White…. Oh wait… maybe we want to be a little careful first. Let’s do this in a new layer. Layer -> Duplicate Layer…. Give it a name. How about “Layer for Black And White Stuff. Which will be in here.” Or something shorter – up to you. After you’ve got your new layer, Start up that Black & White tool like I showed you before.

Now you have to decide what you want to emphasize in the image. The Black & White tool lets you either select using the sliders or choose using a bunch of presets. If you’re new to this, I’d just look through them until you found something that makes you happy. Pretty nice, right? Very flexible. If you want to play around a bit more, it’s time to adjust sliders. If you’ve never done too much B&W, remember that the higher percentage of a certain color, the lighter the area that was originally that color will get.

The last option you have at the bottom is the Tint checkbox. If you select that, you will be able to add a base tone other than black to your “black and white” image. Sepia toning, for example, is just a click away. You can make some great effects here, if that is what you’re after.  I’ve got a picture of a rusty can, so I’m going to keep it real.  Real black & white.

Not too shabby, right?  That’s what I thought.

Alright – so you’re saying “Hey Ari – I’ve got Photoshop CS2 or somesuch – how do I play Black & White games without having the new version?”  To you I say “Dammit!  Now I have to figure out how to use the Channel Mixer again?”  It goes a little something like this:

Instead of copying our background layer, let’s make a new adjustment layer.  Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Channel Mixer.  Give it a name.  On your side menu there, you should have a box that says Monochrome.  Check that bad boy.  Now you have a black and white image and a few colors to mix.  Bear in mind that you’re going to want things to add up to somewhere around 100%.  It’s just how it is.  I’ve been told by the good folks at Photojojo that 30% Red, 60% Green, and 10% Blue is a good place to start.  I tend to agree.  Use the Constant slider to adjust the overall brightness of the image.  That wasn’t too bad now, was it?

Black & White – So Many Choices is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Even so, finding the right shot can be hard.  I wanted the simple lines and symmetry in the wires.  Sun should be up but not right overhead.  You need some pigeons in there, right?  Well I was out shooting radio towers and I just saw this out of the corner of my eye.  Want more?  Hit the jump for the rest of the post.

As much as I like this shot in color, the fact that it only had about three colors in it and that what drew me to it most was the geometric aspects, I figured I’d try black and white.  That seemed a little drab so I duotoned it a sort of warm sepia color.  Photoshop makes this really easy and I think I like the results even better.  What do you think of this one?

Birds On A Wire is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Hit the jump to read how it works.

I didn’t understand layer masks until recently.  If you want to understand, imagine you have a color picture and an identical version in black and white.  Put the black and white version on top and then tear a small hole through just the top layer – voila, color, right?  This is the same thing.  Let’s get started.

1.  Open your color image in Photoshop.

2.  Create a duplicate layer.  Lots of ways to do this, but using Layer -> New -> Layer… and clicking Ok works pretty well.

3.  Turn this new layer black and white.  There are a lot of ways to do this too, and depending on your Photoshop version you might not have them all.  My favorite is to select your new layer (probably called “background copy”) and then choosing Image -> Adjustments -> Black & White… You can twiddle with the levels a bit until it makes you happy, and then press ok.  If you don’t have a newer version of Photoshop, you’re probably going to want to use Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate.

4.  Alright – now we’ve got our black and white layer on top of our color layer.  Time to make a hole for the color to shine through.  Photoshop uses Masks for this, so choose Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal All.

5.  Photoshop is ready for us to make that hole now, and we do it with a paintbrush.  Select something that has soft edges (you don’t want a harsh line between color and black and white, right?).  The brush size depends on your image size and how big the object you’re colorizing is.  Play around.  Now one last important thing: Make sure your foreground color is set to black.  Painting in black will bring the color through.  If you go too far, painting in white will bring the black and white back.  Do it till you like it.

Got any questions?  I definitely suck at Photoshop and I can handle this, so let me know!

Lots of B&W, A Little Color is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

I can’t explain why the port fascinates me so much – maybe too much of The Wire, Season 2 or something.  Seattle is a huge port town, even though it’s easy to ignore.  There are also some great parks where you can watch the action.  I went out on a day far too cold to take some pictures, but didn’t really like anything I shot of the cans (heh… cans), trucks, or ships.  I do like the lights though.  When you’re working around the clock, I suppose you need to see what you’re doing.   During the day, it’s just a 12-armed monster.  Love the shape though – I like how it looks in sepia too.

Lots Of Lights At The Port is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

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Ari the human lightmeter is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures