Converting to B&W - My experience with B&W Styler Pro
April 6, 2007 by sil63
I really like B&W photography even though I’ve never really practiced it. With the advent of digital cameras I rediscovered the tremendous visual potential a black and white image can have. I did a web search and found lots of tutorials (here), on how to convert from color to B&W but then I felt the need of some kind of tool that would make the conversion easier and, why not, fun.
I started with some useful actions (some are here, and here, and here) then stumbled upon a nice plug-in from The Plugin Site: B&W Styler Pro. I like the many tools it offered ranging from six conversion techniques to B/W film type, ISO rating, lens filters, lab development strategy, paper type, color toner, special lab effects and more.
The plug-in features three modes for inexperienced, intermediate and advanced users. It takes a while to get hold of its many options but once you’ve grabbed them the conversion process really sparks your creativity.
I do believe there are images that can work only in B&W and some others that work even better once converted. Here is an example.
This is the original color shot after a bit of photoshop levels adjustments. I must admit I liked it a lot; however, in my opinion, it still lacked something.
Bare Tree - ©Silvia Ganora
So I decided to see how it could look once converted to black and white. I loaded it in the B&W Styler Pro plug-in and started fiddling around with different settings and options, and this is the end result:
Bare Tree - ©Silvia Ganora
Sorry for the size of the image but it seems a larger picture would scramble this wordpress post template. I definitely liked this version better (even though I think I’ll crop the bottom a bit to have the horizon line not so centered). It adds drama to the sky and looks more appealing to me.
On the making of this image I also took advantage of this little action to improve contrast in your photos.
Technorati Tags: photography, black+and+white+conversion, photoshop+plugins, black+and+white+styler+pro
[...] 16th, 2007 by sil63 As I’ve previously mentioned I use B&W Styler Pro photoshop plug-in to convert my photographs from color to black and white. [...]