Robin Wong tried some new and interesting black and white processing and wrote about doing so in a recent article, but without further explanation of what he did (until now). Many of his photos are toned in a sepia-like style, and that’s ok. I rarely tone my black & whites anymore, but trying something new (or old) is always good. This evening, I took a portrait of my coffee cup in a simple still life:
And yes, this is also toned, but only ever so slightly, using the ‘b’ curve in ‘Lab’ mode (with RawTherapee). Plus, as you can probably see from the reflections on the cup and from the fore- and background, I used both the ambient halogen room light plus the on-camera flash, both ‘dialed down’ a bit because you’ll always get the sum of it when doing this.
Taken with the Olympus E-PL1 “Pen” camera and the 45mm lens at f=4 with an 8 second exposure and flash on second curtain. Converted with Olympus Viewer 2 and then with RawTherapee 4. No additional sharpening, because with that 45mm lens you simply don’t have to.
Thanks for viewing.
I really like that shot. Toning doesn’t work for me for every shot. For instance a formula I use may be nice for landscapes, but it won’t work at all for street shooting.
Thanks Libby! And yes, formulas don’t work; you have to treat each one differently.