Theme: More Family

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Converted to B and w, and then used poster edges. This is my niece with her oldest boy Jacob.

[Dennis Bishop]

This really works in B&W; the tones are wonderful. I like the candid shot and the cropping, and Poster Edges gave a great effect. How did you convert it to B&W?

[Nancy Bell]

I love the joy in this! Even as a candid shot, the composition is great with an imaginary diagonal line taking your eye easily from your niece's face to her son's hand and down into his happy face. This B&W version totally keeps the focus on the wonderful expressions. I am also interested in what technique you used to convert to B&W.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thanks Nancy and Dennis for your comments. From the PSD here is what I did. I put it in Silver Efex Pro/Neutral, and then just adjusted the soft contrast and dynamic brightness sliders to taste. Then NIK d/l center, placed on the hand. Then 1/2 orange contrast in Photokit, then Platinum toning in Photokit. Imagemonic Portraiture 2x to soften the skin tones. Then finally curves, brought up the slider from the right to brighten it up, then poster edges. Slight crop. Whew, seems like a lot!

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks for all the detail, Jackie. I'd not heard of Photokit before. A quick glance at their site has enticed me to investigate it further.

[Diane Miller]

I'm wondering if you use the Color Filter section in Silver Efex? The Strength and Hue sliders give phenomenal adjustments to the tones of different colors.

I realize this is OOTB and images are free from the usual "rules", but I wonder if this would be stronger with more dynamic range (contrast). There are often such wonderful tonal gradations in faces, and it can be a delight for the eye to explore them.

There isn't really a place here for conventional portraits -- but I guess "anything goes" in OOTB, even IN the box! I might post a couple of recent ones.

[gary ellwein]

Sheer joy. I second Nancy's comments on the composition. I like the poster edges effect. Thanks for the follow up on you B&W conversion.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Jackie, I was immediately drawn to the same elements that Nancy mentioned - the joy of the mother and child and the strong diagonal component of the composition. I like the look you achieved with the processing, very nice!

A note to Diane - the forum called "Introductions, Interviews, Family, Friends and Fun" is the place for posting "normal" images of people. You will find portraits there.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Kerry -- I had figured that was more for family. Feel free to move it if you'd like.

[Kerry Perkins]

Diane, not a problem! I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows about that forum. There was a huge brouhaha over this subject a few years ago and we decided to have one forum where people could post unprocessed images of people and also non-nature related images.

Let's not hijack Jackie's thread though... Here is the header from that forum -
"Let's have fun! Introduce yourself, read an interview, post images of your photography buddies, family, pets or other subjects the group will get a kick out of (Keep it clean!). You may also post non-nature related images."

[Cheryl Slechta]

Joy describes it all. And thanks for the details - I haven't heard of Photokit either - I'll have to check it out.