More Black & White

So it has taken me a month to get to the second day of week nine at Beyond Layers. Oh well. There's a good, or to be precise wonderful reason, though. Better Half was on holiday, and we've been so busy during the past few weeks that I really have to wonder how we've managed it all. I still continue being busy with various dog show activities, but decided to snatch some time to get a little step forward on the course.

On day 18, Kim gave us advice on black & white conversion, and I absolutely fell for Adobe Camera Raw. Never knew something like that was included with Photoshop, but after practising with b&w for fun, I used it on going over a batch of photos that were to be posted on a dog show site. And oh, it made cropping and editing far quicker and easier. Instead of spending all of Tuesday on the photos, it took me only about three hours to go through the lot of them.

But here's what I've created while trying out Kim's techniques. All the pictures here have been processed in ACR, since the other techniques I already tried out in the previous post.

Pines, Clouds

It's cold enough today to warrant posting a winter photo... The photo was taken on Christmas Eve in 2010, and I thought b&w would add drama to the image. It sure did. Played with this in ACR and then added a blue gradient from the Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom.

Grape Hyacinth

Here's a picture I took in June in our garden. Was interested to see if one could create enough contrast between the blue and the green of the original image, and it worked pretty well. Again, I worked in ACR, but this time I added some texture as well.

Processing resources:
- texture Paper Love by Kim Klassen
- yet another blue gradient from the Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom
- font Saginaw Light
- font Capsuula by Henrich Fichna

Stone Lantern

Here's a lantern that stands on stones under our kitchen window. I like the b&w contrast, and the shapes it brought out.

Resources used:
- texture Aurora by Kim Klassen
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

Field Horsetail

There are these areas in the garden where we have a lot of Horsetail. I like it, the green in it is different from the grasses around it, it's lighter and brighter. In the original photo this was difficult to see, but here I'm pleased with how I managed to draw it into the  front with b&w.

Resources used:
- texture Happy Heart by Kim Klassen
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

Another fun assignment, this one. Looking forward to the next one.