Ansel's Black Sky

(Moon rising behind Halfdome, late February)
Nikon D300, Sigma 150mm macro, sturdy tripod, circular polarizer. 1/90 sec @ f/5.6 & ISO 100. RAW processed in Bridge CS3.

It may be hard to put to words what makes a black & white image "pop" in general, since there is no color to pop, (hehe) so here's the best I can come up with: "Micro contrast, balanced with global contrast." The image looks very contrasty, yet highlights aren't totally blown and faint details are still visible in even the darkest shadows. Put in other words- The image's little details all have great contrast, yet the image as a whole is not ruined... This comes from many minutes spent fine-tuning the exposure, brightness, contrast, highlight recovery, shadow recovery, and clarity, just to name the generic sliders found in Lightroom or Bridge. Also, a fine-tuning of the curves layer adds even more control. Some people prefer to work soley with sliding adjusters, some people work soley with curves; I prefer a little bit of both...

Usually you want to start with as much overall contrast as possible, and then massage the highlights and shadows individually so that they fit within the gamut of your color space again, and finally play with the brightness and exposure to make sure the mid-tones are still where they should be. What I mean to say is, don't just crank the contrast and call it good. Use your histogram, and your highlight / shadow warnings, to make sure you're not loosing too much detail. The most important thing is to make sure your highlights are as close to white as possible, but not actally white except for a few pixels here and there. The same goes with the shadows, although you can let those "go" a little more than highlights...

For example, here is what the pic might have looked like if I had ONLY clicked "convert to black & white"...

And, here's what the image might have looked like if had done nothing but clicked "convert to black & white" and then simply cranked the contrast to the max:

Look at all those lost highlights and shadows! Ansel Adams would not be proud... (In Bridge, blue is the shadow warning and red is the highlight warning...)

Oh, and how to do the dark, dark sky!?! That's the oldest trick in the book, it's what black & white photographers used to do with warm color filters on blacy & white film. All you need to know is that digitally, you can get the same effect by using any black & white conversion tool (such as Lightroom or Bridge or Apeture) that allows you to control each color individually when it is translated into a shade of gray. You lower the blue and cooler colors, so they go dark grey or black. You raise the red / yellow / warm colors, and they brighten up to contrast strikingly against the dark, dark sky...

Of course the black & white conversion is only a part of the equation, and as I said you must spend a few minutes to really massage the tones the rest of the way by playing with the other processing settings...

Beyond the admonition to "take your time and pay attention to the details", I cannot really find the words to fully explain the HOW. But hey, that's why I'm recording myself doing TONS of image processing! I don't know about others, but I am such a "visual-only" learner, I gain so much just by watching someone else work... And of course the only way to gain experience is by just doing things! So go out and experience the visual world...

I hope this article has been helpful!

Take care,
=Matt=