Black & White Process

[shootme]

Trying some strong black & white processing, running an HDR process on 1 jpeg shot and then in Photoshop building on the black and white.

Have I overdone it and would you have suggestions on how to improve such a shot.

Strobist. Had an SB900 just to the right of the camera near the bottom left corner of the subject used about 1/2 power if memory serves me right.

Thanks for your input. Have a great day.

[ksbryan0]

The whites in the center seem too hot, but I love the cloud texture in the upper section.

[shootme]

Thanks Ken, I was thinking along the same lines.

[drg]

First it is a neat image.

The 'effects' border on over done for my taste as part of the 'photo' start to become cartoonish, without completely stepping into that realm. Thus it is somewhat in between. It has the result that the photograph looks like a composite and the skater was inserted over the background.

There is a bit more foreground than is necessary or perhaps too much sky. Skater boy is centered in a way that the impact of being airborne isn't maximized.

From what I can see post-processing the strobe was well placed.

The B/W HDR's I've made, I do all the color processing first. Then I combine or tone map to a single image. It seems to lower some of the blur/misalignment (both spatial and color) a lot.

I don't know that I've commented on this facet of HDR at PR but if the images are sharpened before the HDR (or single image tone mapping) the garish effects are magnified.

You might even consider narrowing the width of the crop to amplify the 'height' of the picture and the jump.

[shootme]

Dr g thanks much appreciated I will give that a try. Will be taking some extra shots this Wednesday so I'll give it a try then. Thanks for the explanation.

I'll try a re-crop to get the hight from the shot.