Part of the following is a direct copy and has been Pasted in for future reference from the Art of Photography coursework PDF Doc. (pasted in Maroon) 4 photographs This exercise will need to be tackled quite differently according to whether you are shooting digitally or with black-and-white film, even though the underlying principle is the same. This principle is most clearly demonstrated in the traditional way, as used with black- and-white film. A strongly coloured filter, let’s assume red for the time being, will allow certain colours to pass through, but block others. If you imagine a red rose against a blue sky, this red filter will allow all of the light from the rose petals to pass through, but block most of the blue light from the sky. If placed in front of a camera lens, the effect on the image in black-and-white would be a bright rose and a very dark sky. If you choose to shoot black-and-white film for this exercise, you will need four strongly coloured filters, red, yellow, green and blue. These can also be used with a digital camera in exactly the same way, but because digital processing software offers an easier way of achieving the effects after you have taken the picture, they are not really necessary. Nevertheless, if you do have a red filter and hold it up to your eye in front of a scene similar to the one I just described, you can immediately see this effect for yourself. The overpowering redness may distract you at first, but if you try to ignore this, you will see that the tonal relationship between the red rose and the blue sky has become very contrasty through the filter. Include a piece of grey card (not shown). Place the camera in one position, ideally on a tripod, so that the composition remains the same for all the pictures. Using a small group of objects with very pure, contrasting colours and even lighting with shadow fill, this still life was processed first in colour, then copies processed into different black-and-white versions using Photoshop’s Black and White option. These are the equivalent of photographing on film using the Wratten filters given in parentheses below. Arrange the same still-life, but you need make only one exposure (in which the grey card should appear as a mid-grey, so check that the exposure gives this effect). The rest of the project needs your processing software, such as Photoshop. Nowadays, almost all processing software programs offer an option to convert the image from colour into black-and-white. In Photoshop, for example, if you shoot raw there is a window in the raw converter (‘Camera Raw’) called HSL / Greyscale, which has a box ‘Convert to Grayscale’ to check and a set of sliders which adjust the relative brightness of different colours. For any colour image in Photoshop, such as a TIFF or JPEG, there is another option under Image > Adjustments > Black and White. This too has a set of coloured sliders, and also a selection of Presets which mimic the traditional filters described above. If you use different processing software, such as Lightroom, Aperture or LightZone, there will be the equivalent choice, but offered in a different way. Make sure that you are familiar with this option. To create the five monochrome versions already described, but digitally, proceed as follows. For the neutral, filterless version, simply accept the default settings for the sliders. For the ‘red filter’ version, raise the brightness of the red slider; also experiment with lowering the brightness of other sliders. For the ‘yellow filter’ version, brighten the yellow slider and experiment with lowering the brightness of other sliders. Do the equivalent for ‘green’ and for ‘blue’. Alternatively, choose the appropriate preset filter from the options available. This exercise is a taste of how understanding colour and putting it to work in black- and-white imagery gives a powerful tonal control, and allows you to emphasise certain objects in a scene while suppressing other.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Equipment
- Nikon D800E
- 24/70 f2.8 lens
- Tripod
- Lightmeter
Method
Having chosen my still life ‘primary coloured’ objects I then arranged them onto a blue background, I also included an 18% grey card which would later be used as a visual comparison during the filter slider adjustment process. I then set up the tripod and camera, took a lightmeter reading and proceeded to take the necessary picture. Happy with the result I then transferred the Image to the computer for editing and processing. To follow the exercise accurately I started with the red followed by green then yellow and finally blue (the background colour). The initial picture was taken with a 24/70mm lens, aperture of f8, a focal length 70mm, camera speed of 1/6th sec, ISO 320. Please see pictures and captions below. Note – all pictures have been compressed hence there might be a quality reduction when enlarging.
1. Original & Greyscale
Picture 1a (Initial coloured image)
Picture 1b (Image converted Greyscale)
Pictures 1a & 1b
Picture 1a – This is the original coloured picture I took showing the coloured still life objects of red, yellow and green on a blue background, complete with the grey card.
Picture 1b – This is the result after converting the initial picture to greyscale. With this picture enlarged, you can see the greyscale button has been checked and all the sliders are at their zero positions.
2. Adjusting the ‘Red Slider’
Picture 2a (Red slider moved to +100)
Picture 2b (Red slider moved to -100)
Pictures 2a & 2b
Picture 2a – With this picture enlarged, you can see the red slider has been moved all the way to its +100 position and the red pepper has taken on an almost white shade of grey. Moving this slider had no side effects on any other colour.
Picture 2b – With this picture enlarged, you can see the red slider has been moved all the way to its -100 position and the red pepper has turned from light grey to black. Moving this slider had no side effects on any other colour.
3. Adjusting the ‘Yellow Slider’
Picture 3a (Yellow slider moved to +100)
Picture 3b (Yellow slider moved to -100)
Pictures 3a & 3b
Picture 3a – With this picture enlarged, you can see the yellow slider has been moved all the way to its +100 position and the two lemons have turned almost white. Moving this slider did have a side effect on lightening the green and to compensate, the green slider was adjusted to -15 to approximate the original greyscale conversion.
Picture 3b – With this picture enlarged, you can see the yellow slider has been moved all the way to its -100 position and the two lemons have turned black. Moving this slider again had a side effect on the green but this time darkening its tone. To compensate the green slider was adjusted to +60 to approximate the original greyscale conversion.
4. Adjusting the ‘Green Slider’
Picture 4a (Green slider moved to +100)
Picture 4b (Green slider moved to -100)
Pictures 4a & 4b
Picture 4a – With this picture enlarged, you can see the green slider has been moved all the way to its +100 position and the majority of the green pepper has turned a very light grey. Although this effect has generally lightened the pepper it has produced darker shades which provide detail to the contours and its overall shape. Moving this slider also had a very slight effect on the grey card which I did not try to compensate for.
Picture 4b – With this picture enlarged, you can see the green slider has been moved all the way to its -100 position and the green pepper has turned almost black. Quite the opposite to above, the green pepper now has its contours highlighted in lighter shades, moving the slider in a positive direction also had a very slight effect on darkening the grey card. Again due to the very slight change in tone, I did not adjust any of the other sliders to compensate and this slight grey card difference can be visually seen in the images above in the two extremes of green slider movements.
5. Adjusting the ‘Blue Slider’
Picture 5a (Blue slider moved to +100)
Picture 5b (Blue slider moved to -100)
Pictures 5a & 5b
Picture 5a – With this picture enlarged, you can see the blue slider has been moved all the way to its +100 position and the blue back ground has taken on an almost white shade of grey. Like the red slider, moving this slider had no side effects on any of the other colours.
Picture 5b – With this picture enlarged, you can see the blue slider has been moved all the way to its -100 position and the blue back ground has turned from light grey to an almost black. Again like the red slider, moving this slider in a positive direction had no side effects on any of the other colours.
What have I learnt from this exercise
Again this exercise has taught me something new, I had no real idea of the intensity of applying relative coloured filters to their converted grey tones could be so effective in enhancing or reducing their presence within an image. Having conducted this experiment it would also seem that the effect of applying a red or blue filter has very little effect on the other surrounding tones but in the event of applying a yellow or green filter, caution and respect is needed toward altering native shades as other neighbouring tones can also be effected.
Thoughts and Reflection
I don’t often work in black and white or convert to greyscale but I do shoot in sepia picture mode and often convert. Having explored the basics of (prime) coloured filters I intend to take this further utilising what I have learnt and apply it to my current knowledge of shooting and converting colour to sepia.
stingray493 