is this BW or colour?

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 3:46 am

Is this BW or colour? Is there an agreed way to define this style?

BTW this is my first attempt at this type of thing, Attempts 2 and 3 are here

http://simonandrews.net/photos/index2.html

I'd welcome comments on any of them.

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 792 Location: St. Louis, MO

It's actually called color isolation I'm pretty sure...

Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 268 Location: Manteca, CA

That was originally a color photo, that was taken into Photoshop (or similar app). The blossom was isolated by a selection tool or mask. Once that was done, the rest of the image was made greyscale. Alternately, using the same image twice, one entire image was converted to greyscale, the the blossom from the remaining color image was selected, copied, and pasted over the greyscale blossom. That's my best educated guess.

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 9:08 pm

Thanks for the replies, so colour isolation eh? Not exactly catchy :p

Hi Grommit, this is my image that I did indeed create in PS. Like I said this was my first attempt at this and think the technique looks great. First I copied the image to a new layer then I used 'extract' to remove the flower from the top layer. I tried to sharpen the flower a little as its not quite focused then I made sure the colour flower layer was above the untouched whole image layer and used the channel mixer on the whole image layer to make it black and white.

'Extract' isn't most people favourite way to remove parts of an image as the process appears messy when you hit the extract button and you have to finish the edges with an eraser but if you turn down the eraser's opacity and flow to around 60-80% and use a relitively smallish brush the extraction is almost perfect. It's the best way I've found to remove fine detail even hair blowing in the wind. Pretty slow process though!

Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 8:58 am

It's also been referred as "Selective Coloring."

Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 11:22 am

more selective black and whitening really!

Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 5:41 pm

DJ wrote:

It's also been referred as "Selective Coloring."

I prefer this term.

Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 128

If you wernt shure if it was digital or film printed, then it could have been painted. But that is digital right?

Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 8:02 pm

yep, this is a digital picture made b/w

Thanks again for your attention to my question.

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:05 am

BandW wrote:

But that is digital right?

You really couldn't tell !? Seems pretty obvious to me...

Joined: 07 Jun 2005 Posts: 1

this is edited with photoshop

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 64 Location: Rockton, Illinois

SyCo wrote:

Is this BW or colour? Is there an agreed way to define this style?

BTW this is my first attempt at this type of thing, Attempts 2 and 3 are here

http://simonandrews.net/photos/

I'd welcome comments on any of them.

I took a look at a few of your pictures. I think monks1, boat woman, and IMG_0595_small would be outstanding as a b/w pictures.

What would also look good is to use alternative deveolping processes, such as Salt, Van Dyke, Gum Printing techniques.
I have started converting my digital pictures to b/w then inverting them to negative. Then I print that image to an Overhead Transparency designed for my printer (I print the negative for contact printing) Meaning if I want a finished image of 5x7 the that is the size I make the negative. Using these old alternative processes with new images opens a door to different level and enjoyment of creativity.
Best of Luck,
AltLars

Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:03 pm

Hi AltLars and welcome to the forum!

Thanks for taking the time to look at my pics.

I've been looking into moving into taking more BW but really dont have the knack for seeing what makes a good BW image. Will have more time as I'm home for a couple of months to play with my images. Will definately have a go at the ones you suggest. You technique sounds interesting too.

Can you post up a few before and after examples to see the effect. If you do can you PM/email and I'll check them out.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 5:24 pm

I call it "PhotoShop Obsessing".

I think good photos are created in the camera and not with PhotoShop.

This is an area of contentious debates in these forums. This thread could get loud very quickly.

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 64 Location: Rockton, Illinois

packard wrote:

I think good photos are created in the camera and not with PhotoShop.

Absolutely!!
I decided to come back to film photography a few months ago, (for my own personal enjoyment) I still use the digital as I can shoot a ton of pictures without spending a dime, (mostly of the grandchildren playing). I have my darkroom set-up in the upstairs bathroom closet and as I started shooting film again, I thought of all of the digital pictures that I would have liked to put on alternative materials. I let my mind flow and I really thought I was on something brand new, using overhead projection transparency as my way of getting a negative from the computer. I bought a box of transparencies from e-bay and I was so excited to see this negative come to life, then I ran upstairs to put it to the test, and it contact printed the way I hoped. Then I decided to make a 35mm negative and see what that would do, and that also worked, but as you enlarged the image it also enlarged the "emulsion" on the injet transparency and I got an interesting pattern, which would look good on certain subjects (mountain, field with tree etc). So here I was thinking I am some kind of pioneer...then I get online and do some searching and found out what I "discovered" was really rather commonplace. So much for me wowwing the world. As I searched I became interested in the older alternative methods of developing pictures. Since most of these alternative methods require a certain contrast from the negative to get a good/great print, all I have to do is manipulate the image with the computer and print out another negative. I am just scratching the surface here, so I can not be very informative. What my goals are is to put images on media most of us would have never thought of...such as? I want to put the images of my family on rocks and put those images in flower pots in the house. Put pictures on pieces of stainless steel sheetmetal. Things like that. Also there is a product that is a liquid emulsion that you can brush on, I haven't used this but plan on it, it is a b/w and there is a variable contrast available. To the purist of alternative methods out there, using liquid emulsion is considered cheating. Not all of us have the time nor space to have a labatory in addition to a darkroom. Anyway here is a link to one artist http://www.alternativephotography.com/artists/kurt_nissen.html
there are many more artists on this website to look at, also the processes are available.
Maybe next time I won't ramble so long!!
Best to all
AltLars