For Mike (Observing)

@Masoud Nahali: Thank you, Masoud!

@saeed: Thank you so very much, my friend!

@Marion: Thanks, Marion. I had downloaded some presets for b&w conversion in Lightroom, but they either produced a washed out, light image, or a lot of noise and graininess. I still haven't figured out how to get a sky as dark as Ian does, but I'm pretty sure it will involve using some filters on the camera.

@dj.tigersprout: Thanks, DJ! Getting those pure blacks contrasted with a bright white is one thing, but to have those and keep enough of the subject in the middle range is the tricky part!

@Linerberry: Thank you so very much, Liners! That is truly the great thing about Aminus3, being able to be inspired to learn new techniques and treatments to improve my photography and processing. There is such a great range of photography styles showcased on Aminus3, that I'll have plenty to work on for the next several years!

@Kylie Greenan: hahaha, Thanks, Kylie, but I doubt you need any lessons from me in photography or processing. Besides, it would take less than 5 minutes for me to teach someone everything I know about processing! ;)

@paulski: Thanks, Paul! I'm sure the same thing could be done in Photoshop or Elements, but I don't know a thing about those programs. Lightroom has two basic color adjustments, vibrance and saturation, in the basic tool box. By taking both of those down until the photo was monochrome (but not all the way to zero) I was able to use the sliders for each colors luminance level to give some shape to the dark and light areas in the image. Much of it was done with the tone curve, but to keep it from looking like a plain conversion, the color luminance adjustments were key.

@mackoieville: Thank you, Mackoieville!

@willow: Thank you so much, Willow1 I like the way this made the sand's texture pop out. In color, it just looked like mud (which it was!)

@Earnest: Thank you very much, Earnest!

@Observing: I'm the one that owes you the thanks, Mike! Trying to get the kind of tones that your photos have and being disappointed with the grayscale tool made me figure out how to get something like that on my own. I've learned so much in the past few months from 'observing' what the great photographers here at Aminus3 do with their shots.

@Stephen Phillips: Thank you so much, Stephen! You're right, this was an inspired image. I saw the footprint and intended to do it in b&w, but didn't like the standard conversion at all. It was even more bland than the color original! By starting over and playing with some of the adjustments (including one that I've rarely used, the blacks adjustment), I was able to get the basic lighting the way I wanted it. Just a few tweaks to the tone curve and luminance levels made the photo transform completely; one with depth, mood, and texture that's almost palpable!

I really appreciate the note you sent earlier, and echo your sentiments. The Aminus3 community is a fantastic place to connect with other photographers, and for me especially, to learn and grow.

@maxine: Thank you very much, Maxine! I'm not terribly familiar with many image processing programs, I was lucky enough to have a friend give me the original Lightroom as a gift when I started out. Besides the 2.0 upgrade to Lightroom, the only other program I'm familiar with is the FastStone Image Viewer, which I use for resizing, final sharpening, and adding my name to the photo. It doesn't do much more than basic processing, as it's mostly an image browser, but it does have a very good resizing tool. It's also the right price. free!