Grayscale wrecks

[Clay Coleman]

Back in the dark ages, lots of people shot deep wrecks with the tried-and-true Kodak Tri-X black and white film. Not only was the film very fast in its day with a rated ISO (ASA in those days) of 400, but it had sufficient lattitude to be "pushed" (overdeveloped--usually in a brew of equally tried-and-true Kodak D-76 developer) to an effective ISO of 1600. The use of the film did more than simply make some ambient shots possible; it also produced a moody look that added to the drama of the photos. Modern shooters can approximate this classic look by rendering their wreck photos in black and white by using the grayscale option in Photoshop, and it's not uncommon to see modern published wreck images in black and white. Fool around with some of your wreck images and see what you think. Here's an example:
http://claycoleman.tripod.com/af4bcd30.jpg
Clay

[chris bangs]

VERY nice shot Clay

I am currently shooting a wreck project here on Guam. your thread inspired me to convert the images to B&W using a Photoshop Action by Fred Miranda. and frankly I am quite pleased with the results.

Cheers

Chris

[Clay Coleman]

VERY nice shot Clay

I am currently shooting a wreck project here on Guam. your thread inspired me to convert the images to B&W using a Photoshop Action by Fred Miranda. and frankly I am quite pleased with the results.

Cheers

Chris

Hey Chris, that's great! I know that you've been locating wrecks over there. Is the project for future dive sites or for the historical record? I'd really like to see what you've been shooting. -Clay

[chris bangs]

Hi Clay

I am assisting with a video production focused on the post WW II history of the construction of the Glass Breakwater here on Guam. It was built shortly after the war on top of a natural reef. Wrecks along this reef include a Japanese bomber, Concrete barges, bulldozers and lots of other war relics. there is even a pre WW II Harley Davidson motorcycle. Not to mention a bazillion WW II era Coke and Pepsi bottles.

The Vis tends to Suck due to the silty bottom and lack of water movement. In the unlikely event I shoot anything as nice as the shot you posted I will share it.:D

Chris

[Jonathan Bird]

Many underwater scenes look really great in B&W. In general, anything that would be photographed with natural light and therefore have a blue cast in color looks fantastic in B&W, which includes wrecks, schools of fish, dolphins, whales, etc.

A few years ago I did a "pet project" of a self-published book of underwater B&W. All of it was shot on color film and converted to B&W in photoshop. I was criticized by a few people because it wasn't "real" B&W (shot on B&W film). But if you need to shoot on real B&W film to make "real" B&W images, that means that digital isn't real either since there is no film at all, right? My logic was this: most of the time you shoot color underwater and it looks better than B&W. But every once in a while you see and shoot something that would look better in B&W. Unless you specifically go out in search of B&W shots, having B&W film in your camera severely limits what you can do underwater. Why limit yourself? Use color film and convert later to B&W. Cheating? Maybe.

Incidentally, in high school I had a B&W darkroom in the basement. I used to shoot on B&W film for artsy stuff, but also color film because it was convenient for most other things. Sometimes I would print color negatives on B&W paper in my darkroom using a kind of paper designed for that (I forget the name of it) and it looked great when you got the right settings and filtration. So this is not just some photoshop trick. you can do it in a darkroom "old school" too.

Here's a link to the book with some images:
http://www.jonathanbird.net/shadows_book.htm

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Kodak used to make a paper called Panalure, which was panchromatic, which means that it was sensitive to all colors (other black and white papers were not sensitive to red--hence the red safe light). The paper had to be processed in total darkness, but it made a reasonable BW print from color negatives. I don't think that removing color from a digital file is cheating at all. In fact, we used to "spot" prints with India ink and water to remove white spots on prints caused by dust embedded on the negatives, and black spots caused by pinholes in the negative (220 film was notorious for pinholes) were meticulously etched out of prints with an x-acto knife and then spotted with the India ink. The point is that most of the tools in modern digital photo managers were available to darkroom technicians--it's just a whole lot easier with the digital programs. -Clay

[FLEETHAM]

The following is a "better" way of turning a color file into black and white. It is not my ingenious discovery, but something that was passed on to me. Who knows where it first came from.......

PHOTOSHOP BLACK AND WHITE

Channel Mixing
The best way to convert your IR image to gray-scale is with the Channel Mixer. Just desaturating your image or directly converting it to gray-scale won't give you the best tonal results, especially if your image has a lot of false color.

To open the Channel Mixer, choose Image > Adjust > Channel Mixer to bring up the dialog box shown in Figure H. Since you're making a black-and-white image, the first thing you need to do is select the Monochrome option in the lower-left corner of the dialog box. This makes your final image completely neutral.

Now, examine each of the color channels us-ing this technique-set the percentage of one channel to 100%, while the other two channels are set to 0%. After you've examined all three channels, select the darkest one to be your base image. Set this channel to 100% and then add or subtract percentages of the other channels until you achieve an image with a good tonal range. Keep in mind that a negative value inverts the channel before applying it to the output channel. Click OK once you've finished and then convert your image to grayscale by choosing Image > Adjust > Grayscale.


Figure H: The Channel Mixer is the best method for converting your image to grayscale. Merely changing mode removes precious image information during the conversion process.

Curve Control
Now that your image is in grayscale, you need to adjust its contrast. The quickest way to do this is with the Curves command. The best way to apply Curves is with an adjustment layer since it's nondestructive and you can easily change it. To do so, click the New Adjustment Layer button (ICON) at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Curves from the pop-up menu. First, use the black-and-white eyedropper tools to set the black-and-white point of your image. These choices should be made in the darkest and lightest portions of your image, respectively. Then, adjust the curve as necessary to get the best dynamic range possible. You can see our result in Figure I. It's better, but it still needs some help.


Figure I: Use Photoshop's Curves to establish a base contrast range.

Burn, Baby, Burn
As in the darkroom, burning and dodging in Photoshop works well to enhance areas of your image. Unfortunately, the Burn and Dodge tools won't work on a separate layer so you'll have to apply them directly to the image. This means you need to be careful and work in small areas before moving on to the next section. For either dodging or burning, it's best to use a low exposure setting and a feathered brush. Exposures of 5% and less generally are the easiest to control.

Once you've burned in an area, press Ctrl-Z to reverse the effect. You can then press Ctrl-Z again to undo the undo. Toggle back and forth a bit to make sure you like what you did before continuing. As you can see, our final image in Figure J looks quite different from the original.


Figure J: A little burning can go a long way to enhance the effect of an IR image.

Broaden Your Spectrum
With digital cameras, you can experience the charm of infrared imaging without a lot of the hassle. If your camera can take infrared pictures, you can have a lot fun creating beautiful images, but be careful as you may find IR photography to be an addictive past time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above takes a bit of experimentation...but it is definitely better than just converting to gray scale.

David Fleetham
david@davidfleetham.com
http://www.davidfleetham.com

[chris bangs]

David

Thank you for the step by step tutorial. Exactly what this blundering photoshopper needs!

Do you have any tips for "shooting" digital IR images? Camera settings, exposure and lighting. I

f the weather cooperates, I will be shooting some more of our wrecks here on Guam. The Tokai Maru / SMS Cormoran "twin" wrecks are on the menu this time. These are BIG!

Cheers

Chris

[Jonathan Bird]

David is absolutely right. One old school trick when shooting a B&W scene was to use certain color filters to affect how the image turned out in B&W. For example, a red filter would darken a blue sky. So if you had white puffy clouds and blue sky, you could get better contrast between the two by using a red filter, even though you were shooting B&W. You can get the exact same effect shooting in color and using the red channel to convert to B&W. The channel mixer in Photoshop lets you control what amount of each color contributes to the finished B&W image.

Jonathan

[Daniel]

There are obviously many choices available. B/W Styler is a Photoshop plugin for B/W conversion, creating traditional B/W effects and styling B/W photos. B/W Styler works in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, PhotoPlus, Photo-Paint, IrfanView and PhotoImpact under Windows. It supports 8bit and 16bit RGB images.

Daniel

[andyt]

306

Photoshop CS3 has a black & white option to aid conversion to monochrome. In the end though I am not sure it offers any great advantage over using the channel mixer.

I have never tried to shot black & white underwater before. But well the light is bad and the water so full of crud that a strobe is unusable, it can become an attractive option to have.

[jamesw]

Photoshop and Lightroom grayscale offers a HUGE advantage over converting the RAW to a color file then desaturating it or tweaking w/ the channel mixer.

This is because you can selectively adjust the channels of the B&W file in CS3/Lightroom before the conversion. You can also selectively adjust the saturation.

I did this with some of my safari photos that I converted to B&W - adjusting the blue channel to influence the sky, and the yellow channel to influence the grass.

Should work a treat on underwater photos.

Cheers
James

[sorvju-f]

306

Photoshop CS3 has a black & white option to aid conversion to monochrome. In the end though I am not sure it offers any great advantage over using the channel mixer.

I have never tried to shot black & white underwater before. But well the light is bad and the water so full of crud that a strobe is unusable, it can become an attractive option to have.

BW pics have special feeling, maybe because BW is referring to past when we had BW-televisions:rolleyes:

Wrecks are also from the past so it is good combination.

In this attached pic first I noticed light then head and missing hair then rebreather and last the wreck:eek:

Jukka

[solisti]

BW pics have special feeling, maybe because BW is referring to past when we had BW-televisions:rolleyes:

Jukka

I'm too young to remember that. For me the past is when we had analog TV! :D

[andyt]

In this attached pic first I noticed light then head and missing hair then rebreather and last the wreck:eek:

Jukka

I tried to get him to leave the light on the boat & wear a wig - but you know how difficult models can be!!

[sorvju-f]

I tried to get him to leave the light on the boat & wear a wig - but you know how difficult models can be!!


I sure do..with millions of pics where they are swimming away and showing their fins...yours is rather good;)

Jukka

[solisti]

I'm bringing this thread up since there have been no pics posted here and I would like to see some. I dont have nice wreck images myself, but maybe this comes close enough. A wreck of a rowboat:

[Clay Coleman]

I really like that shot, Solisti! It's simple, graphic, and makes a statement. There's an example of composition using only a few lines to make a picture. -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

I agree! Nice shot!

[McCloud]

The row-boat wreck is much like the wrecks in my backyard. The conditions in Nothern-Europe is not suited for conserving wrecks.
This is Yolanda in the Red Sea.

[solisti]

Another rowboat:

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg27/solisti/suke035bw.jpg

[Jonathan Bird]

Someone ought to raise that boat and use it! Looks good enough to row away in.

[solisti]

Then you would see only photos of rocks and mud from me :(

[solisti]

A more wrecked wreck for Jonathan: :D
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg27/solisti/suke027wb.jpg

[Highlander]

Nice picture solisti. Here is one of my wreck pictures from Egypt.
I bet people will recognize this one...
662

[sorvju-f]

Nice picture solisti. Here is one of my wreck pictures from Egypt.
I bet people will recognize this one...



Its beautiful, but I feel that orientation is not real:p..surface is up left corner...it doesn't matter...I just hade to take up that I have also been there;)

Jukka

[Highlander]

Its beautiful, but I feel that orientation is not real:p..surface is up left corner...it doesn't matter...I just hade to take up that I have also been there;)

Jukka

Yes, I know You've been there and that is one reason I put this pic here :) I think your Giannis video is great. :cool: I've done mine, but the size is still more than 3 GB. So it's going to take while for me to get it online.
-Miikka

[mailato]

Nice picture solisti. Here is one of my wreck pictures from Egypt.
I bet people will recognize this one...
662

Great picture Miikka! ;)

[PalmDivers]

Awesome picture.

-----------------------------------------
-Jeremiah
http://www.palmdivers.com