Latch

[Irish]

Not normally into black and white but quite liked the effect of the old rusty latch on the fence post.

What do others think??

[gahspidy]

Hey Irish,
I'm not feelin this, in B&W. It looks like the lighting was very harsh on this scene and the latch with chain is not standing out strong enough against the fence post. The first thing I think when i look at this is that it must have been a strong direct sunlight beating down right directly on the scene. just my opinion
Would liike to see the original in color.

[Elysian]

The darkest shadows are pure black. This is just one reason why the lighting looks harsh.
There will be a lot of reflections on a sunny day like this and that's why we will never have pure black. There's also nothing you can do with pure black or white when you would like to make corrections at a later stage, because pure black/white will stay the way they are, they have no details.

[Irish]

Hey Irish,
I'm not feelin this, in B&W. It looks like the lighting was very harsh on this scene and the latch with chain is not standing out strong enough against the fence post. The first thing I think when i look at this is that it must have been a strong direct sunlight beating down right directly on the scene. just my opinion
Would liike to see the original in color.

Thanks for comments Gary and Joe. The image was shot in late afternoon sun, not a harsh day. How do I soften the light without loosing the shadows????

I have posted the coloured version for comparison. I may try selective colouring of the chain and latch.

[opus]

Thanks for comments Gary and Joe. The image was shot in late afternoon sun, not a harsh day. How do I soften the light without loosing the shadows????

I have posted the coloured version for comparison. I may try selective colouring of the chain and latch.

I think what's hurting you is the similar values of the colors. They all have a lot of yellow in them, so when you convert to greyscale the shades of grey are very similar. The grass isn't helping any, either.

I did some extensive playing around with the channel mixer here, along with variations. I think I got the latch to stand out more. Do you think so?

[Chunk]

Thanks for comments Gary and Joe. The image was shot in late afternoon sun, not a harsh day. How do I soften the light without loosing the shadows????

I have posted the coloured version for comparison. I may try selective colouring of the chain and latch.

Here's what I tried with your image.
I split the color image into RGB channels and decided that the green image showed the chain and catch to best advantage but was still too contrasty.
A histogram check of the green channel showed showed a full range of tones so there was no need for a levels adjustment.
I performed a curves adjustment to bring out the midtones and lessen the contrast.

[Irish]

Thanks Chunk (I imagine some one a little like the HULK?????) for your suggestion and helpful post.

I agree your rendition is not so contrasty but still holds the detail of the shadow that I was looking for and the latch in well defined. I'll give that a go.......so much to learn in photoshop.....and so many ways to get to the same point.....I tend to over do things like contrast and sharpening etc..