B & W flower shot

[AgingEyes]

Thank you for looking !

[OldClicker]

To me, there is a lack of white. Can you take the flower (yellow?) color to white? - Terry

[Greg McCary]

I agree it could use a dash of true white. It looks to me like in the OLD days when the camera exposed the whites as 18% gray. An easy fix.

[AgingEyes]

Thank you for the comments, guys !

Something to consider:

What is a true white? RGB values = 255? A white with no details, like the white of the printing paper?

First of all, the flower itself is not white. The only thing that is white in the entire image is a small, textureless reflection on the bulb.

Secondly, in the film days, using the terminology of Zone system, a textured white is Zone VIII, meaning three stop above what the exposure reading your camera tells you. You can use higher exposure and make it "whiter" but it would not show very well any texture the subject has. Depending on your reference, a RGB values of 169 is already a Zone VII, and 197 is Zone VIII. I generally let textured white be 245 to 247.

Back to the flower in this photo, since the flower is not white to begin with (I'd guess in reality overall it's around or perhaps bit lighter than 18% gray but not much), I therefore chose not to push the RGB values too high. As shown, the highest RGB value the flower has is 252 (a couple of tiny spots in the petals), which is pretty much in the blown highlight range. And a large part of the flower has RGB values of 186 and high, kind of like Zone VII and above.

Hope this explains why I did what I did

Again, Terry, Greg, thanks for the comments ! They are always appreciated !!

[armando_m]

Looks great to me !

I can see all the detail in the flower

and it really stands out vs the OOF background

[shootme]

Nicely done, a bit more white on the petals would be great.

[APRIEST]

I really like this shot. I am not usually a fan of B & W florals but this works for me. I do agree, however, that the flower would pop if you brightened it up a bit. Good job!

[baldemort]

i would crop in a little closer and remove some of the noise in the background, but i think the tones on the flower are lovely due to the fact that it's not a plain white flower and hence has converted well.