B&W night shot

[Mario]

Hello all,

I’m interested in suggestions on how to improve on B&W. Shot a broken mannequin at night under street light.
Intended to maintain the silver color of the dummy. Still, the pic looks a bit flat to me. What does it need?

Many thanks for comments.

Have a great day.

ƒ/2.8
18.0 mm
sec 1/60
ISO 1000

The Model.jpg by Mario on Light Stalking

[Gordon James]

Hi @nanyar. I take your point about this still looking a little flat. Could you post the original colour version? It could help us see what other options you might have? Also, what processing have you used so far for the conversion?

[Mario]

@gordonjames

Thanks for your input.

As requested:

1: original

2: with reduced saturation, increased clarity and contrast, split tones yellow and red, curve adjustments.

3: increased clarity reduced white

dummy original (1 von 1).jpg by Mario on Light Stalking

dummy desaturated split tones (1 von 1).jpg by Mario on Light Stalking

dummy edit 2 (1 von 1).jpg by Mario on Light Stalking

[Gordon James]

OK, thanks @nanyar. The issue with the original was, to my mind, the lack of contrast between the mannequin and the background – once reduced to tone only it was all very similar. It also doesn’t particularly look like a night shot – dull, yes, but not nocturnal.

I was rather hoping that streetlights might have offered an orange background, which possibly makes things easier. I should have asked what “processing software” you used, but missed out the ‘software’ bit! However, the what is the important bit, how will depend on your skills and the software available.

What you need to do is reduce the background whilst keeping the dummy as-is. In lightroom a slider would allow you to darken orange and yellow significantly, in other software you might need to create a mask for the dummy and then reduce overall exposure. I think you need to reduce the tones on the left of the image to similar to those you currently have in the bottom right corner. Once darkened sufficiently, further tweaking to contrast and/or clarity may be appropriate.

I would also be inclined to leave a little more of the lighted window than in your crop. Masked, this could be lighter (it is separated from the dummy) which would add to the nocturnal feeling.

Curiously, I quite liked the original, with subdued colour background and B&W foreground (or so it appeared!). Each to their own.

Good luck!

[Mario]

@gordonjames

Nice, Now I got it. A white ball in front of a white background doesn’t look so impressive. :o)

Many thanks for you time and explanation.

[Mario]

Thanks. Which one is your first name? :o)

Last try for the moment I decreased the background to make the contrast bigger. Now the dummy stands a bit out of the scene.

dummy edit 3 (1 von 1).jpg by Mario on Light Stalking

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