Stunning Architecture Photography In Black And White

Leave a comment February 12, 2020 teachesphoto

Text and Photos by Chuck Place©

Architecture is one of those photographic subjects that cries out to be captured in black and white. Composed of shapes, texture and light with little inherent color, architectural images often turn quite dramatic when color is stripped away.

Black and White photograph of Walt Disney Concert Hall at dusk

It’s almost as if the building’s soul is revealed when photographed in black and white.

The choices I make in processing architecture images into b&w are highly subjective, of course. For black and white architecture images, I prefer more contrast than in my landscape images and more emphasis on texture than in my tight portraits.

I’m not trying to sell real estate. I’m selling drama and impact.

The inherent sculptural quality of a structure is what I am actually trying to illustrate. Sometime approaching a building as an abstract object can be interesting, as in the case of Southwest and Pueblo adobe buildings. The texture of the adobe (see above) is as important as defining the massive planes of this traditional style of architecture.

Black and White photograph the church at Rancho de Taos, New Mexico

At the other end of the scale are sleek, modern buildings like the abstract Walt Disney Concert Hall, especially fun while shooting with a Lensbaby, which is designed to distort reality.

Black and white photograph of abstract building detail using a Lensbaby

Often, details of a structure can tell the viewer as much about a building as an overview.

I find this especially true in the case of older styles of architecture, like Victorian, and buildings from other cultures like China. Details can be interesting just because we often tend not to focus on them when visiting a site.

Black and white photograph of the details of a Victorian church

Black and white photograph of traditional Chinese architecture

Whether your favored architectural subject is a lonely church out in the middle of the Western plains or a busy multi-storied mall with levels that look like the ribs of a gigantic creature, converting your color architecture image to black and white will visually pare the subject down to its elemental components and reveal the true personality of a building.

Black and white photograph of solitary church in the West

Photographing a piece of architecture in black and white is rather like creating an insightful portrait of a person, only it doesn’t fidget as much.

Black and white photograph of a modern shopping mall

Check out  Black and White Photography Conversions and  Black and White People Photography on this site and for more photo classes, check out my Spring 2020 class schedules in the Non-Credit Program at Santa Barbara City College. Thanks.

Chuck Place

Black & White Photography–The Journey Continues

1 Comment January 20, 2020 teachesphoto

Text and Photography by Chuck Place©

I am continuing my quest to learn black and white photography through the process of converting a number of my color images to b&w. If you didn’t see my last post converting landscapes to black and white, jump back there and take a look.

Each photographic subject, whether sand dunes or deep forest, has presented its own unique challenges. I have been especially struck by the amount of burning and dodging that was necessary for images that look quite good in color.

Black and white of oaks in fog

It has also been a challenge deciding how much contrast I want, especially in the details. I like some velvety blacks in my images, but it is easy to go too far with contrast—almost like too much saturation in color images.

Let’s see how black and white conversions work with images of people.

My first portrait conversion was almost monochromatic to start with. While teaching lighting at a design school in China, I used the schools lighting kit—two fluorescent lights with umbrellas—to demo beauty lighting. These were tight head and shoulder portraits and I was going for a clean, graphic look.

Black and white portrait of student in China

I chose a student from the first row as a model and had her position her hands to help frame her face. The images looked pretty good, but I wanted a little more impact so I had her close her eyes.

The twin arcs of her dark eyelashes on her pale cheeks worked well and seemed to be a natural for black and white conversion. Using the HSL slider, I darkened her sweater and lightened her skin. The last step was pushing the Clarity Slider to -15, giving her skin a soft glow. Ridding this portrait of color seems to have created a more dramatic yet serene image.

Black and white portrait of server in Avila Beach

Tight head and shoulder portraits seemed to convert well, but what about environmental portraits with all their location details? This, I found, was similar to converting a forest scene. Detail contrast was critical and some of the presets in the Develop Module proved useful shortcuts.

Black and white portrait of a farmer

Subtle vignetting using the Radial Filter helped focus the viewer’s attention but a fair amount of burning and dodging was still necessary, just as it was in the landscapes.

The one thing that changed drastically from the tight portraits was the Clarity Slider. A slight negative Clarity setting smoothed out skin texture, but with less skin and more detail in the environmental portraits, I defaulted to my usual Clarity setting of plus twenty or so.

Black and white of hostess in a wine tasting room in Los Olivos

My “street photography” is often busy restaurant interiors, like the image at the top of this post, shot in the venerable Paradise Café.

Converting this image to black & white seems to pump up the energy of the scene, stripping away the soft mood of warm afternoon light and replacing it with pure vibrance and hard-edged light.

Black and white of an Old West town

I’m starting to actually see the possibilities in a color image before I convert it. Decisions on the processing steps are getting a little more intuitive and the particular “style” of black & white that I personally prefer is also coming into sharper focus.

Black and white of an apple farmer in the Santa Ynez Valley

I’m getting a terrible urge to start printing some of these images, but I know my eye for black & white needs to develop further. A box of archival matte paper is already on my shopping list along with extra black ink cartridges, just in case my willpower fails.

If you are making this exciting journey to black & white along with me, let me know how you are progressing. This is turning out to be quite challenging but also a lot of fun.

For a listing of my tuition-free Spring 2020 Non-Credit classes at Santa Barbara City College, please click here.

A Color Photographer’s Conversion To B&W

2 Comments December 17, 2019 teachesphoto

Text & Photography by Chuck Place©

I have been a photographer for over 40 years and recently have developed a real interest in black & white photography.

Like all photography, it’s a journey and I am inviting all of you to join me in exploring the medium of black and white.

In order to pre-visualize in black and white, I realized that I need to learn b&w processing. I will be doing most of my black and white conversions in Adobe  Lightroom. It is my primary post-production tool for color images and works quite well in b&w. I also have a b&w plug-in for Lightroom called Silver Efex Pro 2. By now I’m sure there is a newer version of Silver Efex, but I’m using what I have.

I will continue to shoot in RAW and convert the color image. When color is stripped out of an image, b&w photographs are all about shapes, contrast and texture. I especially notice the increased impact of texture and contrast without the “distraction” of color. It’s almost as if you can feel the texture of surfaces.

In the B & W Panel, I used the Adjustment Point Tool. The warm orange tone of the face of these dunes in Death Valley National Park was selected and lightened.

Along those lines, I first started converting color landscape images. I started with sand dunes, just like pretty much every landscape photographer in the Western U.S. These dune images become quite graphic and even more sensuous in b&w than color.

Although there are several different ways to approach black and white conversion in Adobe Lightroom, I found a 4-step workflow that gives me lots of choices but can be quite simple if I choose to go that way.

First, make a virtual copy of the original color file. Command ‘ is the shortcut or go to Photo in the toolbar at the top of the screen and scroll down to “Create Virtual Copy”. This keeps the original color image visible which will soon become useful in adjusting the luminance of certain areas. Click on the Develop module and under “Basic” on the upper right, click on “Black & White”.  This gives you a basic b&w version of your color original. You can stop right there if you are happy with the results.

This moody landscape from Redwood National Park easily converted to a b&w image. I increased the contrast a little for texture and lightened the foggy area slightly with the Adjustment Brush. Easy.

My second step is usually to make local adjustments to areas of the image I want lighter or darker using either the Adjustment Brush or the Graduated Filter in the top panel on the right side of the image window. I can also make a more detailed selection by using the B & W Panel, also on the right. Click on the Adjustment Point Tool in the upper left of this panel and drag your cursor across an area of the image that you would like to darken or lighten. The cursor selects the original color of the area and you can use the sliders to change the luminosity of the selected area. https://www.slrlounge.com/understanding-each-section-in-the-hslcolorbw-panel-in-lightroom-4/

In the B & W Panel, I used the Adjustment Point Tool. The warm orange tone of the face of these dunes was selected and lightened.

The next step I try is a shortcut of sorts. I see how my image looks using one of the Presets located in Lightroom. There are quite a few. I also check out the Presets in Silver Efex Pro. In either case, a preset allows me to get close to how I want the finished image to look. https://nikcollection.dxo.com/silver-efex-pro/

One of the B&W Presets in Lightroom was chosen to bring out the texture in these sandstone cliffs in Canyonlands National Park.

Lastly, I’ll fine tune contrast using the Shadow and Highlight sliders in Lightroom’s Basic Panel and dodge and burn specific areas with the Adjustment Brush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGUKd_FV-y8

It actually takes longer to read this than to perform the 4 steps necessary to produce a successful black and white image. In many ways it reflects the traditional steps of shooting a b&w negative and making a final print. Less messy but very similar.

As I convert existing color images to black and white, I am also getting a feel for what works well in b&w and what doesn’t.

As Ansel Adams commented, “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it”.

I’m working on that twelve inches and pretty soon I may actually start pre-visualizing in black and white. That’s my goal at least.

Check out my upcoming classes this Spring at https://www.chuckplacephotography.com/Workshop&Classes/Classes/

 

The Creative Image–Cell Phone Photographs and Cyanotype Prints

Leave a comment October 8, 2019 teachesphoto

By Joyce Wilson©

Fall is in the air, and the crazy, hectic summer is behind us.  For the past five years, I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring teenagers in an alternative photography program hosted by the Santa Barbara non-profit The Arts Fund .  These budding artists are so enthusiastic about photography, ready to explore and learn.  This summer, I showed them how to use some creative iPhone apps and we added cyanotypes to the program.

The cyanotype process was hands down the favorite. We all watched the magic happen as the prints developed and I loved their joy at experiencing this for the first time.

Cyanotype History

During the 1840’s, many photographic printing processes were developed.  The Cyanotype process, invented by Sir John Herschel, proved to be of rare value.  Anna Atkins used the Cyanotype process in 1843 for botanical studies.  She produced the first part of what eventually became the three-volume (very) limited edition of Photography of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.

Vintage Anna Adkins Cyanotypes

The Cyanotype process was not used often.  However, in the 1850’s, Henri Le Secq did do some experimenting and published some new formulas.  In the 1860’s the Parisian firm Marion & Cie. made a Cyanotype paper for blue printing, engineers and draftsmen.  This paper was used as a method of copying drawings and specifications.

From Keepers of Light by William Crawford

Old & New – Let’s Explore

With digital technology now the norm, there is renewed interest among artists and young photographers in vintage techniques, and many of these early processes are showing up in exhibitions and websites as photographers seek for new and exciting ways to express themselves.

The old is new—and it’s back!

There is no denying new technology. Just as we got comfortable with digital cameras and Photoshop, the genius geeks gave us cell phone cameras. iPhoneography is incredible and we now have a tiny computer capable of magic right inside our cell phone.   Ronna Schary, in Los Angeles, introduced me to the cell phone camera 10 years ago. It’s great to be able to capture the decisive moment when I don’t have my “real” camera with me.   Ronna is a wizard with iPhoneographs—check out her Instagram posts at https://www.instagram.com/ronnaschary/.

So grab your camera and your iPhone and get excited about new adventures, experimenting and learning interesting techniques to make photography fun.

Images taken with my Apple iPhone 5 –not a fancy new one—but how cool! I used the Tintype app (an add-on of Hipstamatic.)  They really look like old tintypes, and color and sharpness can be adjusted.  Download and experiment. You’ll get hooked

How’s this for an abstract and altering reality? I used the Insta Booth app. The left image was then altered again using the Tintype app.  My friend, Carol Andrews in Houston, hooked me on this one.

 

Cyanotype

This old world process is having a wonderful resurgence in popularity.  Blue, gray, black and white are the current trends of color for décor and fashion, so hop on this bandwagon while it’s hot.

The image in the middle is a portrait I took of Celine, one of my teen students.  Al Davalle, from the Chicago area, arrived in Santa Barbara the last day of the teen mentorship, saw the Cyanotypes and had to play.  The image on the left is Al’s wonderful abstract of a stairwell.  The image on right I took with the Insta Booth app, and created a Cyanotype.  I’ve had a wonderful summer, teaching and exploring old/new techniques, and excited to be an instructor for the Brooks Photo Workshops, working with other Brooks instructors to keep the Brooks’ legacy alive and continuing to inspire and energize photography lovers.

If you’re ready for an exciting hands-on session, come join me on November 2, 2019 for The Creative Image – Cell Phone Photographs and Cyanotype Prints.  Here’s the link for registration.   https://www.ernestbrooksfoundation.org/workshops.html

 

Till next time, remember, “Old is New and Blue is In”.

Joyce Wilson      jw@joycewilson.com    www.joycewilson.com

Travel Photography with Chuck Place

Leave a comment September 26, 2019 teachesphoto

Travel Photography is much more than shooting snapshots of your vacation. Images created during your travels should transport you back to the magic you felt as sunset light washes over an ancient Mayan pyramid or recall the drama of colorful powwow dancers as a late afternoon storm builds behind them in the distant mountains of New Mexico.

Join professional travel photographer Chuck Place in a new 6-week course in the Brooks at UCSB Program, learning to capture the magic of new places, people, events and flavors. Each 6-hour class will include a 2-3 hour location shoot here in Santa Barbara and then classroom lectures and assignment critiques covering such travel subjects as architecture, landscapes, people, activities and food.

Learn to capture memories and create images with impact. Join Chuck Place this fall and immerse yourself in Travel Photography.

3 Photographic Techniques For Creating Beautiful Direct Sunlight Portraits

Leave a comment September 17, 2019 teachesphoto

Text and Photos by Chuck Place

One of the most challenging lighting environments a photographer will face is creating portraits in direct sunlight. This light source has a strong specular quality that produces harsh shadows and strong highlights. The contrast range is often greater than your camera can capture and the portrait is anything but flattering. There are, however, several techniques that allow you to modify the sun’s light to create beautiful portraits with softly diffused, directional light.

Don’t settle for bad lighting—modify it.

The most commonly used, and easiest solution, is to shoot your portrait early or late in the day. Sunlight is softer at those times with a rich, warm color temperature and a definite direction—perfect for portraits. Early and late sunlight creates drama in a portrait that adds an extra layer of emotion to any image.

Late in the day sidelight with a warm photographic reflector

For many years National Geographic Magazine has used this technique to set their photography apart from other publications.

Direct afternoon sunlight with a small photographic diffuser panel

The second technique is used while side lighting your subject during the day, but modifying the light with a diffusion panel. Diffusion panels come in a wide range of sizes, from big “silks” large enough to light a car to small, folding models that can be carried in a camera bag all the time. I myself carry a diffusion panel and a reflector on my camera bag, each of which is 8 inches across when folded and opens to 23 inches wide.  They essentially weigh nothing.

Diffusion panels are placed between the sun and your model and the larger the panel, the softer the light.

I have also found that the closer to the subject I place the diffuser, the softer the light becomes. Diffused light tends to fill in shadows and wrap around a subject, creating smoother looking skin. A bonus in portraiture!

Afternoon backlighting with a large photographic reflector

A reflector or flash fill can also be used to control the contrast of direct sunlight, but I personally prefer the look created by a large reflector. By moving the reflector, I can easily shape the light on my subject and create a strong three-dimensional feel in the image.

Heavy backlight with a photographic reflector to help fill in the shadows

The final technique is one of my favorites—back lighting. Often when I photograph portraits in bright sunlight, I position my subject so that the sun is behind them and I expose for the shadow side of their face.

Heavily backlit subjects are exposed for the shadow side of their faces

This approach has several advantages when shooting in direct sunlight.

Backlit subject with a photographic reflector

The first is contrast control. The shadow side of your model, as well as everything else in your image, is the same exposure. Backlighting also produces a bit of a bright halo around your subject, helping to separate them from the background. Your subject can also keep their eyes wide open. There is no squinting when your model has their back to the sun. Lastly, as you adjust your exposure for the model’s shaded side, the background becomes brighter relative to the subject. This gives your image a bit of a high key feel, especially with a shallow depth of field.

Admittedly, avoiding lens flare and dialing in the proper exposure is a little trickier than front lighting. You can find an earlier post on that subject at

With just these 3 techniques, you can create beautiful, striking portraits out in direct sunlight. Mastering some simple equipment and positioning your model properly can lead to startling results. Control the light and then connect with your model. A portrait is, after all, a partnership between you and your subject. Have fun. That will always show in the final portrait.

Fill The Frame For Greater Visual Impact

Leave a comment August 29, 2019 teachesphoto

Text and Photography by Chuck Place

Famous war photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” I came across that quote early in my career and soon realized the truth of that statement.

Snowy mountain peak cropped tight with long lens.

Adapting that approach to my own work, I have found that to increase impact, crop tighter.

Original beach sunset before cropping.

Sounds simple, right? But what about all that other stuff you want to keep in the frame? Do you really need all that? Does it make your message stronger? Sometimes less is actually more, as they say.

Cropped beach sunset for greater impact.

Often, I find my students loosely cropping an image. When asked why, I find they aren’t totally sure what constitutes the main subject. Another famous photo quote, this one by Ansel Adams, is “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.”

Farmers Market vendor with lots of produce.

The first step in creating any image is knowing what you want to say about a subject or location. Be clear in your own mind what is important and what is secondary. Then make it clear to your viewer by cropping out most of the secondary material.

Farmers Market vendor cropped tight in camera.

Cropping tight and filling the frame increases the impact of your image and makes it easy for your audience to “read” your message about the location or subject.

Chinese tourist films Forbidden City in Beijing, China

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes the environment around a subject is as important as the subject itself. I would hate to crop out the Forbidden City in the above image. But if you feel like some of your photographs seem a little flat or dull, try cropping tighter in post-production. Experiment with it and if you like the results, you will soon find yourself cropping tighter in-camera. That’s when you will realize that your work has taken another big step up in mastering the power of photography.

New Travel Photography Class at UCSB Extension, presented by Chuck Place

Mastering Lens Flare For Beautiful Images With Impact

Leave a comment July 23, 2019 teachesphoto

Text and Photography by Chuck Place

Most photographers try to avoid flare. It occurs when a light source, like the sun, is positioned in front of your camera. If direct light from this source hits the front element of your lens, it bounces around inside the lens producing a hazy fog on the image and often large and small colored spots.

Camera lens flare pretty well ruins a sunset image.

This haze lowers the contrast and masks out detail. If the spots are present, they can make a real mess of your image. That’s all bad, right? Well, maybe.

I have come to realize that many aspects of photography that I thought of as mistakes are actually creative opportunities. Slow shutter speeds, soft focus, moving the camera during the exposure—they all have their uses, just like flare.

The late afternoon sun is patially obscured by fall aspen trees to eliminate lens flare in a photograph.

Over the years I came to realize that I could control flare by placing the light source, usually the sun, half way behind an object. If I split the sun in half by placing a building, tree or sail in front of it, I created a dramatic star burst with very little flare. Easy!

The sun is partially hidden behind a sailboat spinnaker to create a star burst effect and eliminate lens flare in a photograph.

It wasn’t until I started shooting with a drone that I was forced to truly embrace flare.

My DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone has a built-in camera with an effective focal length of 24mm. It’s a pretty good wide angle lens. There is no lens shade however. Flying with a lens shade would not only be exciting but downright suicidal. That lens shade would catch the air and introduce all kinds of problems flying. I love shooting backlit subjects, but with my drone, that always causes flare to some degree.

The sun is placed on the edge of the ruins of a Spanish Mission to create a star burst effect and eliminate lens flare in a photograph.

I have learned to accept the flare in my drone images, even embrace it. I still hate the color dots and blotches and try to get rid of them in post production. The haze, on the other hand, can add a wonderful moody feel to an image.

The late afternoon sun is allowed to peak under a Farmers Market awning, creating a soft haze of light from lens flare .

Flare can add drama as the sun breaks through morning fog in a valley or define the warmth of late afternoon sunlight at a Farmers market. At times, flare even creates the effect of God rays streaming down over a beautiful mountain landscape scene, as in the Featured Image above.

The sun peaks over a mountain ridge at sunrise, backlighting the morning fog with little lens flare effect.

Shooting with the drone’s aperture wide open gives me rounded dots and blobs which I then circle with a soft-edged selection tool. I then color correct, de-saturate and lighten or darken the selection to match the background. Some shots are beyond help, of course, but many others correct easily. It just depends on the subject.

Now don’t get too carried away with this. Flare is like a rich dessert—a little is plenty. There are times, however, when a little extra drama or atmosphere can really improve an image. Try adding flare to some of your images and see if it works with your subjects. “Embrace The Flare” sounds a bit zen, but you may find it adds another layer of emotion to your photographs. Take control of flare and add another item to your photographic toolbox. You really can’t have too many tools. Right?

Aperture Priority–The Auto Exposure For Photographers

Leave a comment June 25, 2019 teachesphoto

Text and Photography by Chuck Place

I almost always have my camera set to “Manual” exposure. I admit it. I’m a “Manual” snob. Taking full control of my camera’s shutter speed and aperture, or f-stop, gives me perfect exposures no matter the subject or the lighting.

Making the leap from “Program”, where the camera makes all the exposure decisions, to full “Manual”, where the photographer is in charge, is a big step however. Let’s face it, “M”, or “Manual”, can be rather intimidating.

Are all the auto-exposure settings a waste of time? No, of course not, but one is better than the others.

Back lighting of sailboarder in Aperture Priority exposure can be tricky.

Let’s break down exposure. Assuming a proper exposure is the final result, shutter speed usually just needs to be fast enough to produce a sharp subject. Whether 1/500, 1/1000 or 1/2000—they all will look the same, assuming you aren’t photographing a hummingbird. Shutter speed is generally used to freeze motion—and give you a proper exposure, of course.

Set Aperture Priority exposure for great depth of field in landscapes

Aperture settings, or the f-stop, also control exposure, but determine depth of field in an image as well. Depth of field, or how much of the image in front of and behind the plane of focus is sharp, is one of the most powerful tools in photography. Changing from great depth of field to very shallow depth of field completely changes how a viewer “reads” your photograph. The storyline of an image changes dramatically with a change in depth of field.

Aperture Priority works well for dusk images but a tripod may be necessary for the long exposures.

Aperture, or f-stop, is the exposure setting that a photographer must control absolutely!

Conveniently, there is an auto-exposure setting on most cameras that allows a photographer to set the proper depth of field while the camera picks the appropriate shutter speed for a correct exposure—“A” or “Aperture Priority”.

Photographing people often requires shallow depth of field to separate the subject from the background.

If you want to separate your subject from the background of an image, set your aperture, or f-stop, to a wide opening of f2.8 to f5.6 for a shallow depth of field. Conversely, if the background or environment is as important as the subject, pick an f-stop that creates greater depth of field, say f16 or f22. The photographer must make the decision on how much depth of field is appropriate, then the camera picks the shutter speed to create a proper exposure.

The Aperture Priority exposure setting is perfect for travel photography under changing light.

“Aperture Priority” is especially useful in situations where the lighting changes quickly, like sports, weddings, travel, concerts and street photography. It’s fast and eliminates half the work of “Manual” exposure.

Is it foolproof? Well, no.

Pick shallow depth of field for food shots using Aperture Priority exposure settings

Your camera may still underexpose sunsets like the one above, light-colored buildings and backlit subjects just like it did on “P”. Much of the time, however, the exposures will be great and each image will have the depth of field that you want, rather than what the camera “thinks” is correct.

Even in the tricky lighting environments listed above, the exposure will be close and can be corrected in post-production. Not that I advocate fixing everything in post—quite the opposite—but the “A” exposure setting makes setting exposure relatively fast and painless. Take control but make it easy. Shoot in Aperture Priority and relax!

Photo Capture–Only Half The Battle

Leave a comment June 12, 2019 teachesphoto

Text and Photography by Chuck Place

Today’s photography software is amazing, especially post-production software like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. Capturing an image is now only the first step in producing a finished photograph. How an image is processed can either emphasize what was obvious in the original capture or change it completely.

Standard processing of the original RAW file

Ironically, we have traveled a long way to end up with a process similar to long-established black & white darkroom printing techniques. Change the contrast and exposure—no problem. Dodge and burn selective areas of an image—done and done. Now we have even greater control and we can manipulate color at both the global and localized level as well. All this processing power can be daunting and I have found that if I can pre-visualize the final image during capture, post-production goes quite smoothly.

That’s right, I shoot specifically for post-production.

Processing RAW file for an edgy look with Lightroom settings visible

The image above illustrates this process. This fitness studio caters to a certain age range of clients and the windows look out on a parking lot. The model was lit with a large softbox but I allowed the view out the window to over expose. The soft light was flattering to my subject and the blown out windows produced a high key feel to the setting while hiding all the cars.

Using my standard Develop settings in Lightroom, Clarity at 25 and Vibrance at 35, the image turned out as my client and I expected. Wanting to give my client some choices, I also processed this image with an edgier look, setting Clarity to 100 and Vibrance to -55. This look appeals to a younger audience. See the screen shot above.

Processing for normal black & white using Lightroom b&W preset

We could have gone with a basic black & white look as well, or even a high key black & white treatment. Lightroom has a set of black & white presets and you can then alter those settings as your vision dictates.

Processing a high-key black & white image using a Lightroom preset as a starting point

One of the brilliant aspects of Lightroom is that it is a non-destructive software. For each unique version you create from a single image, Lightroom merely creates a low-res preview file. The original is never altered. Only when you export a file is a whole new derivative file created. Every version of your original image is saved as a text file that records the processing steps, saving tons of disk space. Brilliant!

How do you learn to pre-visualize a certain look that you create in post-production? Well, you have to play with images in Lightroom. Have fun trying out different slider combinations. Find a look that speaks to you and works well with the subjects you like to photograph.

I even have different Lightroom settings depending on whether the original RAW file comes from my Canon cameras or my DJI drone.

Remember, if you haven’t begun to master post-production, you are only working with half the available photography tools out there. If you want to get a better feel for what is possible using Lightroom, look into my Santa Barbara City College Non-Credit Class “Digital Cameras Digital Photos” or Bruce Burkhardt’s SBCC Non-Credit Class “Adobe Lightroom Essentials”. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.