The Digital-monochrome worker By Martin Henson
www.martinhensonphotography.co.uk
How to make stunning Black and White pictues from a Digital Camera using Martin Hensons Contrast Grading method
Lets take a look at this picture. I captured it at Spurn Point near Hull, what do you think, any good ? (well I hear you say I could have taken that with my iPhone) Yes I agree with a little knowledge you could take a picutre like this with most Digtal Cameras, however its not what you capture, its all about what you do with the picture after its taken.
The straight conversion is OK but it lacks contrast, the photographic term is “flat� meaning all of the tones have the same or singular tonal rendering , the effect as we can see creates a picture with no separation where all the elements tend to blend together, so what do we do to make the picture come alive.
Page 1
The Digital-monochrome worker Let’s go back in time and think about how a picture was made from film, the negative was developed and would look like this. The person who was printing this would see straight away the negative would need to be printed on a harder paper, the usual grade of paper to print on in the wet darkroom would be a grade 2 to 3 this negative would need a 3.5 or grade 4 paper to get the contrast back that the negative is lacking. When printed on a harder grade paper the print would look more like this example. The problem with using harder grade papers can be seen in the sky and clouds. they are burning out and detail is lost. The darkroom printer would have 2 options to pull that detail back. Ÿ To burn the sky down to reveal detail Ÿ Split grade the paper using Muttigrade Papers. Either way would produce something like this.
Page 3
The Digital-monochrome worker The picture is now looking better than the straight conversion with better contrast, and tonal separation between the dark and light tones. Apart from dodge and burn or using high contrast paper developers that was as far as the average darkroom worker could go, obviously the darkroom print would look better than the above example with brighter whites and deeper blacks (D-Max) Today film and wet darkroom work is left to the real enthusiasts who have a desire to stay with the traditional ways of making a print from a negative. What do the digital workers do to make a good strong black and white image. When you capture a Digital picture in Raw it’s always in colour and has to be converted to black and white in editing software such as Photoshop, there are many ways to do this, whole books are written on the subject and can be confusing to say the least, wouldn’t it be nice if we could transfer the old darkroom ways into the electronic environment, there is a way that I have developed and use it in all my Black and White conversions
Contrast Grading To control tone and contrast in the Digital file we have to alter the Curve of the file in such a way that it enables us to darken and lighten specific areas and alter contrast without altering adjacent areas. This can be done in Photoshop or any editing suit that allows you to add Masks after any Curve adjustment, this way we can place tone and contrast within the edit accurately and where we want it much like using Dodge and Burn in the wet Darkroom. Using the Contrast Grading method the end result would be like this, extended tonal range, detail revealed with better depth and clarity. Page 3
The Digital-monochrome worker How many times do you hear people say when looking at a darkroom print or film scan that the resultant prints looks . When you shot film and print from the negative or scan, the picture has an organic look that comes from the film grain (structure) as the example below.
At this small size its difficult to see the Film grain, however it is there and gives it that that's often hard to define
Until now I have been talking about Tonal Range and Contrast, another area that needs working on when editing Digital files is Tonal Contrast or in other words Structure, again using the same method of Contrast Grading and applying a mask on a copied layer then painting back the Structure where needed you can give the picture a more Organic look. Page 4
The Digital-monochrome worker Digital Capture does not have film grain; in fact at low iso they are smooth with very little Structure. At high iso what you will see is noise which tends to lowers detail and spoils the overall look, not to be confused with Structure or Grain. In picture A no edited for Structure has been done, in picture B Structure has been added, you can see this better in the 100% crop preview
A
B A closer look at 100% crop
A 100% crop
B 100% crop
Page 5
The Digital-monochrome worker We can add Tonal Range, Contrast, and Structure however the last edit would be to add Mood. This is probably one of the hardest things to do, you have to put your own feelings into the picture reflected in your editing. The picture opposite has been edited in the way I have described in the previous pages, the only thing I have not done is added MOOD. I want the picture to have more impact and a better feel of Winter,
All I have done is selectively darkened the Sky and Clouds this gives a better balance and MOOD to the picture.
Page 6
The Digital-monochrome worker I hope you enjoyed reading my article on Contrast Grading, all the pictures on my web site www.martinhensonphotography.co.uk were edited using this method and is testament how good it works. It is a way of editing that you can build on and will teach you the relationship between tonal range and contrast in a way that you will understand. No Plugins are needed, although I do recommend certain ones to add into the workflow but they are not essential. I am often asked if Photoshop is the only editing software that can be used to Contrast Grade, Photoshop is without doubt the best you can buy however if you use a different type to edit, as long as you can copy Layers and add Masks they would suffice. If you would like see a more then please go to this link at YouTube
If you would like to buy my Contrast Grading 2nd edition DVD please go to the link below. Click to visit my online shop and purchase the DVD or a Download version
Contrast Grading purchase page Page 7