TAOP Part 3 Colour

Exercise 4 - Colours into tones in black and white

I use a digital SLR camera so this exercise is lot easier than using black and white film.

I've prepared to take my starting image using a green, red and yellow pepper each sitting on a chair next to a patio door so that I can use natural light from the top of the image and using a tripod set the camera overhead.

With camera set-up over the chair I've in aperture priority at F5 (giving me sufficient depth of field for what I had planned, I've taken an image of an 18% grey card. The camera set the shutter exposure at 1/20 of second to obtain what it deemed the correct exposure. I've then put the camera in manual and set the camera to aperture to  f/5 and shutter 1/20 so that I know I am exposing the image with the same, and camera correct, white balance, from a jpeg's perspective

Replacing the grey card with the 3 peppers I'm then ready to take the image but damn, the 50 mm lens is struggling to get a focus lock and I'm getting frustrated. However I've then remembered live view so I switched the camera to manual focus, set it in live view and used the camera zoom button to enable manual focus until I'm happy the subsequent images will be sharp. This in itself was a great learning experience. In theory I knew this but in reality had never photographed in this way.

Image 1

This is the colour image, correctly focused and I believe correctly exposed and has no processing adjustments of the jpeg:

Using the natural source of light this has created some shadow on the peppers and on the other side helping to ensure the image doesn't look flat. Note I've arranged them in an implied triangle on a slight diagonal. It made me laugh setting up like this but my learning from Part 2 has really sunk in and yes, it does make the image more interesting than how I may have previously set up for this type of image.

Image 2 - Auto Mono Conversion

Using Adobe CS6 I've converted this to mono using the auto setting. I'm really surprised how this colours have been interpreted, especially the yellow pepper, the green and red appear very similar.

Image 3 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion

Going back to the colour image, Image 1, I've used Silver Efex to do the basic mono "neutral" conversion. I also know in Silver Efex I can experiment with colour filters

The mono conversion of the yellow pepper is much nearer to what I thought it would look in mono, clearly the CS6 Auto conversion to mono has applied some colour adjustments.

Image 4 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion with Red Filter

I've repeated Silver Efex doing the basic mono "neutral" conversion  and applied a red filter

This is interesting, the green pepper looks unchanged but both the red pepper (right side) and yellow pepper (bottom) have become considerably lighter

Image 4 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion with Yellow Filter

I've repeated Silver Efex doing the basic mono "neutral" conversion  and applied a yellow filter

The yellow filter appears to have lightened the yellow pepper (bottom) more than the red filter and has also slightly lightened the green (top) and red (right) peppers.

Image 5 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion with Green Filter

I've repeated Silver Efex doing the basic mono "neutral" conversion  and applied a green filter

The green (top) and yellow (bottom) peppers have lightened by the red pepper (right) has darkened considerably to what appears almost black, I wasn't expecting this.

Image 6 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion with Blue Filter

I've repeated Silver Efex doing the basic mono "neutral" conversion and applied a blue filter

The blue filter has darkened all the peppers, the darkest starting as the yellow pepper (bottom) and then the red pepper (right) and least the green pepper (top). I also note that between images 5 and 6 there is a stringer light reflection on the red (right) pepper using the blue filter rather than the green filter.

Image 7 - Silver Efex Mono Conversion with Orange Filter

I've repeated Silver Efex doing the basic mono "neutral" conversion and applied a orange filter

Using the orange filter the image appears very similar to those created using the red and yellow filter, orange being a mix of yellow and red so perhaps not surprising.

Exercise Learning's

a) Remembering to use lines and diagonals in a still life helps the interest in the image

b) using live view can substantially help in getting the desired sharpness of focus when using manual focus. I will remember this when I next take macro images.

c) use of colour filters in black and white images can have a major effect on the tones in an image, very noticeable in using just the three colours of green, red and yellow. I need to keep a clear understanding of these colours in colour and when converted to black and white when I look to take images I already know in advance I want to make a mono image of

d) certain objects/subjects of certain colours can be isolated in a mono image helping them stand out if desired

e) Using a an 18% grey card can help ensure correct exposure. This can of course be amended using RAW files in post processing White Balance adjustments. This I have also learnt when processing infrared images.