This has further delayed delivery on some of the photos I had hoped to have out by the end of February, which has been difficult in its own right. I’m hopeful that we’re only a couple of weeks out from being all caught up, but until then the blog will continue to be quieter than normal. I have some great things to tell you about when normality returns, though

Meanwhile, I leave you with a photo of Radar that shouldn’t need any explanation

Anyway, it’s now two weeks late, but here’s my long-awaited intro to black and white post production. And there’s a whole hour of Wednesday left as I start writing this, so it TOTALLY counts as a workshop wednesday

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different ways to convert a colour image to black and white. Just ask Google. Seriously. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there!

My approach, as always, is simple, Lightroom-based and not particularly earth-shattering. I hope it helps you figure out an approach that works for you

Here’s a colour image, straight out of camera, from Ainslie and Rohan’s wedding:

It looks OK in colour, but to my mind, the long shadows are begging for black and white treatment. This is the end result I was going for:

And here’s how I got there (just using Lightroom’s Develop module):

1. White balance: avoiding proper colour correction by converting to black and white makes for crappy black and whites. Don’t be lazy! For this photo, I set my colour temperature to 7000 with a tint of +15.
2. Grayscale treatment: I have Lightroom configured to apply an automatic grayscale mix as soon as I convert from colour to grayscale (Preferences > Presets). Usually it does a pretty good job (assuming my white balance is correct ), but occasionally I might darken the greens, lighten the reds or make other minor adjustments. In this case, I didn’t override Lightroom’s defaults.
3. Tone: Again, I usually start by auto-toning my photos, and tweaking from there. For this photo, I made the following adjustments:

   * Exposure: 0
   * Recovery: 34
   * Fill Light: 14
   * Blacks: 10
   * Brightness: +109
   * Contrast: +100

4. Vignette: Finally, I applied a vignette to further draw attention towards Ainslie and Rohan.

Voila! A pretty dramatic-looking black and white I hope you found that useful … if so, please spread the word!

I can’t wait to photograph Lisa and Steve’s wedding in a couple of weeks! It’s going to be at Sylvan Glen. I love Sylvan Glen

Sorry for not getting these up on the blog sooner, guys!

Oh, and please feel free to leave some love in the comments

Click here for full details, including times, dates and content.

Only 3 places remain on our first course, so register now if you’re interested!

Here’s a random photo I took yesterday. More to come soon!

1. I have too much post production to get through today.
2. It’s my mum’s birthday, so I can’t work back tonight. (Not that I’m a big fan of working back anyway.)
3. Doug Boutwell from Get Totally Rad released a new set of Lightroom presets last night. I’ve been busy checking them out.
4. Bobby Earle has already posted a before and after using a beta of the presets. It’s worthy of the time you were planning to spend reading my post production post.

Incidentally, I haven’t bought the presets yet. I’m not sure if I will, either … they look awesome, but I’m pretty happy with my own Lightroom presets at the moment. I’ll let you know. Either way, if you’re a Lightroom user, you should totally check them out. All the Totally Rad action sets and presets are well worth the cost.

I’ll do my black and white post next week!

Sorry there wasn’t a twitter tuesday post today. Too busy. But you can get your own fix easily enough

There was a vampire groom, a sing-a-long, a wombat tossing, and a whole lot more …

Enjoy

Here are a few of my favourites from Ainslie and Rohan’s photo session. Their reception photos will have to wait until tomorrow

You’ve probably already seen the last photo … this was a Halloween wedding

Photo session and reception photos will land later tonight. Enjoy