How to Perfect Black & White Landscapes - WITHOUT PRESETS
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2020
- LUMINOSITY & CONTRAST eBook: expressive.photography/educat...
THE VIDEO:
I have been making black and white photographs for over two decades. I've used a variety of tools and lots of presets, but not for the last 10 years! I can achieve everything with a few sliders in Adobe Lightroom (or ACR) - and take ownership of the outcome.
In the next few videos I will explore much of what it takes to perfect Black and White Conversions without relying on presets or other plugins.
As always, I hope you find my take on the art of photography useful, if so Please SUBSCRIBE.
As always, thanks for watching and stay safe.
Images & Music: Alister Benn
Video Production: Ann Kristin Lindaas
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We've more weeks of lockdown, so can I say how much I'm enjoying your Luminosity & Contrast ebook? The accompanying images are a real treat too: p126 struck me as forcibly as an Adams original (Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend National Park) I saw many years ago for 3-dimensional impact, and there are so many more to appreciate.
That is a truly humbling comment, thanks so much. The photograph you're referring to was taken in the Himalaya from nearly 17000 feet. Such a rush..
@@ExpressivePhotography It's great when reproductions convey much of the impact of an original print. If you exhibit, I'd really appreciate a heads-up. That Adams exhibition in 2002 is still a treasured memory.
@@Hirsutechin Thank you. I'm starting up a print studio at home again now we have the time. I can't wait to start printing again and I think an exhibition would be something I would very much like to do.
I had no idea you could control vignette like that and I love what you are doing also with the gradients in chosen areas. Your explanations are wonderful. Thank you!
Once again I really appreciate your kind feedback
B&W is an art form in itself
Great tip on pumping up the vibrant to get more out of the tones. Would never thought of that in a million years. Thank you.
Thanks for that. Most of this I stumbled upon through years of exploration. You get lucky eventually!
@@ExpressivePhotography cant wait to try it. Photography can be like that sometimes. Well done on finding this one.
This is great, and I can apply all this to capture one!
Stumbled on this video and my mind is blown. You nailed exactly why I love black and white photography AND find my bliss in the editing process. Can't wait to watch more of your videos.
Awesome, really delighted to hear that
I'm a little late to the party on this one, only just discovered your channel. Such a great video, and made me realise that not only was using presets making me very lazy in post production, has also highlighted that it's probably one of the key reasons I was falling out of love with the whole photography process. Enjoy getting out with the camera, was growing more reluctant to process, and more heavy handed with the delete button. Thanks for making this video, and thank you for re-igniting my interest in the PP side of photography
Delighted to read this, hopefully most of my content will help you reconnect with your love if expressing your creativity
A big thank you, this was very helpful
Hi Alister, hope your doing well. I love black and white photgraphs but I have way much more to learn, this video of yours is so much insightful especially when you cranked the temperature down. I was amazed the effect of this in the image and how detail and transition made a more impactful photo. Can't wait to do this on my photo. Till, then keep safe always.
Interesting to follow your thought processes as you interpret the image. I was surprised that you did not mention visualisation of the image when shooting it. However, very instructive. Thank you.
Its nice when you can use your own intuitive to create photos like this... a great editor.. you are ..
Spectacular Vid
B&W (night) photography is my passion, an has been for over 40 years. I feel that B&W images are much more powerful (no distraction due color). Your video is done very well. Thank You.
Thank you sir , you helped me get back into photography, I really appreciate the way you explain yourself.
I enjoyed your video. I photograph mainly in black and white, and learned some new things from you. Your black and white landscapes are very striking. Thanks for sharing and all the best.
Alister read you book 👍🏼. You approach separates the Instagram photographers from the art of photography. You have changed my 40 year of photography average to photography art. This has given me a new reason to go and take photos of my local area that are different from the “norm “. And revisit my modest 60 K catalog of photos with a new eye. Thank for giving me a new vision for my pending retirement (67) years. Cheers from down under 👍🏼🍷❤️📷🇦🇺
Really appreciate you doing this black and white mini series Alister. I get so much more from yr videos and have been really enjoying your ‘chat sessions’ with other photographers too. I so resonate with your approach and sensitivity to what makes up a photo and our inner connection with the process. Thanks for all you are doing!
Thanks for that, great to hear. I'm fortunate that I get to do this the way I want to do it.
Nice! Well dine expression of the artistic nature of B&W, and how the color aspects of an image impact final creation.
Another excellent offering. Always waiting for the next.
Phew!! You're only as good as your next video :-) ;-)
Just wonderful!
Many thanks!
amazing video thank you =)
Another excellent video Alister, with great insight! I really enjoy your thought processes and approach to b/w imagery. Buying your eBook right away.
Thank you so much for that, we really appreciate your great feedback and support of our work.
Outstanding video! I learned so much, and now I want to see what I can do with B&W. I'll be getting the book, too. Subscribed to your channel now.
As always, it was very educational. I thank you.
You are very welcome - Thanks for the kind feedback
Wonderful episode, very insightful and as always a great watch
Glad you enjoyed it - that means a lot.
Thank you for this video. I will watch the rest. I’ve always enjoyed black and white photography and remember fondly going out with a film camera unloaded, but with a roll of black and white in my bag, and making the choice of which to shoot at the first location, based on light, how much colour the scene had in person, as well as geometry. Even with a digital camera I still like this approach; I make my choice of colour or black and white at the time, switch the back of camera screen to show black and white jpegs, even though shooting in raw. All the colour data is recorded in the raw files. When I upload to Lightroom, I see the black and white thumbnails, the. I set LR to convert to black and white on import. On the first image, I undo any slider adjustments LR has made, so all I have is a straight black and white conversion. I then copy that to the other images to undo any slider adjustments. I then edit each photograph individually.
This way, the only colour I have seen is with my eyes at the scene, because once I make the choice of black and white, I never want to see a colour rendition of my photograph.
I agree with what you say about presets. I don’t use them. I once made a few and then never used them. The idea of using somebody else’s jars with me. People talk about them as a starting point, but the moment I apply somebody else’s preset to my own image, it is applying somebody else’s vision, which may be very different from my own. This is true whether I am processing in colour or black and white.
Another very informative video, thank you 👍🏼
Thanks Jane - you're welcome
So happy I came across your channel. I have recently got into black & white which I love. Thank you so much for explaining it all.
Excellent, happy to hear that and a very warm welcome
You have explained the monochrome edit so nicely. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Looking forward to this series Alister. I do a lot of black and white photography.
Great, I'll have fun with this one...
I couldn't agree with you more regarding the overuse/sale of presets. I was not aware of adjusting color before changing to B&W. well done. Thank you.
Thanks, glad to bring something new in the first vid
I watchthe video a second time. It started normally this time. The most important is I found your course very interesting and deep in thinking. Thank you.
excellent, pleased to hear that, I was quite confused.
Great video Alister. Wonderful ideas to think about when processing black and white images. I must say when I watch some of your videos your approach and techniques are different (in a good way) than a lot of other processing content I have seen recently.
Happy to hear that Larry - I'd hate to be the same as everyone else :-)
Great episode Alister! thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! - many thanks
Great video Alister. Even though I feel I know Lightroom very well, I always pick up a gem or two from your tutorials.
That's awesome to hear. It's a very powerful tool and underused. Lots more coming over the next few weeks.
Thanks a heap for making this video Alister! I learnt a lot more than I thought I would from this video, I didn't realise how little I was actually using Lightroom for my monochrome edits when I thought I was maxing it out. I was looking into Silver Efex Pro 3 for monochrome edits and I had the free trail but only 2 I liked out of the whole lot but even then I was making big adjustments to suit my image. Now I know thanks to your video how I can apply it to my editing and I did stop the video at parts to have a go on some of my images. You really make it simple and easy to understand in a wonderfully calm manner as you speak us through it. Thank you!
Sorry for the slow response, we’ve had some family sadness to deal with. Thanks so much for the lovely feedback
Thanks so much, awesome explanation!
Thanks man, happy to hear that
@@ExpressivePhotography I shoot mostly in colors, digital and film but sometimes I really love BnW trying to learn more about it and your video was really helpful. If you can check my BnW and give me some your feedback, that would be awesome. @fh.bnw
Great Video, as always!!
Thanks again!
thank you for your presentation
You are welcome - thank you
Thank you very much, Alister. I'm agree with you that LR is perfect to make a B&W.
The part that you give the computer data (colour), is really an eye-opener for me !
Luminosity and Contrast is a fantastic book btw !
See you next week !
Massive thanks. I really appreciate the kind words.
Enjoying this. When I am out shooting, I will look at a scene and know that it should be a black and white. Thanks for a detailed look on how to look at a scene to make it pop in B&W.
Thank, I shoot a huge amount in black and white and I find it very therapeutic.
Great video Alister. I do love making black and white images. Looking forward to more on this topic! Thanks so much! 👏
Thanks Barb, glad to see you ditched the premiere in favor of staying in bed :-)
@@ExpressivePhotography Haahaa, yeah. Didn't go out for astro last night (just a sunset) so went to bed a reasonable hour. It was great getting back out into the Everglades again. So quiet and barely any mosquitoes. Thinking of going out again today. Its raining. I've always avoided the rain, but maybe today I learn something new!
Exceptional video. Well done
Many thanks!
Vielen Dank, this video is very instructive!
Glad it was helpful! - thank you very much
Another very insightful video, absolutely agree regarding presets, I've never used them. I prefer complete control over the processing and treat each individual photo on its own merits.
Many thanks, well said.
Another gem that will take a re-watch or two. Very excited for this series; as an old film shooter with roots in a B&W darkroom, I've always loved black and white and still love to process in B&W.
I wonder what Ansel would have given for Lightroom!? Thanks for your comment, very much appreciated.
@@ExpressivePhotography Not only would he have loved it, but think of the tricks he'd be teaching us!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge on B/W. I just recently captured an image of a beautiful color sunset with a tree. It was full of oranges and yellows and vibrance. When I turned it into B/W I spoke to me. The contrast was amazing. The scale from white to blacks were instantly there. Anyway, I ended up sending out for printing....I hope it looks like I'm expecting. (30x30 square). Would love to show it to you if you care. I am learning Lightroom and your video is very helpful. Thanks Keith - Pennsylvania
Excellent video. Thank you for the comment on presets. My feeling is that presets are like frozen dinners. It may be convenient to have a few around but if you use them all the time you will never learn how to cook.
Nicely put ❤️
"By stripping the color away," you achieve drama, gravitas and wonder. I always shoot color (Adobe RGB, 16bit, RAW) and go to photo shop to a preset, basic, BW. I use contrast, Red and Blue controls of the B&W image to go to the finished image. Alternately, I use Camera RAW, desaturate, clarity, dehaze, red and blue and yellow sliders to get the tonal range that I want. This way, I can simulate infra red just because it has been a favorite look for me.. Thanks for the vid. I do think you have a better command of the Tech then me but I had the opportunity to work with film and paper and chemicals for about 20 ears before I escaped to thee freedom of DIGITAL land
I never see anyone discussing the very bottom control panel on right side in Lightroom ?
Informative vlog as always.
Thanks for sharing again.
Yeah, one of my favorite areas :-)
Under the social blade of utter litter. Bourgeoisie was never an issue. Thanks a lot Gary Gough. Mainly because everything was so sharp
Hi Alister: I hope that you are doing well during this very difficult time. I really enjoyed this video and I am excited to see the interaction of these videos along with the materials outlined your Luminosity & Contrast e-book. Keep safe! Cheers, Keith
Hi Keith. Doing good thanks. In many ways being able to do this is the bonus. I'd never have time under normal circumstances. It's a great opportunity to rethink the direction we want to take.
Hi Alister,
Great video as always. Very great and thorough way or processing and the reasoning why so. I fully understand and mostly agree. I do not use presets all that much. But I have come to like presets that can serve as a starting-point, especially those in the form of profiles. As a FujiFilm shooter it is very nice that all FujiFilms profiles are available for Raw both in Lightroom and Capture One.
I have long been a Nikon (digital) shooter but before that shot Kodak Tri-X and processed these films and shot with green, yellow, orange and red filters. It is just very nice to be able to replicate these starting points now. I don't consider that any less of a creative choice as most every step of photography always is.
Thanks for that. Profiles yes, they.re fine. I'll cover at the color filters in next weeks videos.
That first dune photo you showed here is spectacularly good.
Thanks ❤️
@@ExpressivePhotography I looked at some of your other videos. Some great photos.
I noticed some interesting videos you have about black and white photography or how to process them. I've been doing this kind of thing. I have collected a lot of vintage lenses over the last few years because they have been going cheap. Modern lenses tend to be better for landscape because wide angles are better but I found one very unusual lens that is really great for black and white landscapes. The Auto Takumar 35mm f2.3 from the 1950s. This is a strange lens and quite expensive and rare. It's known for wild bokeh when you open it up but when you stop it down to f8 or 11 it gets tack sharp with no chromatic aberrations. It also changes wildly in colour at different stops so is not good in that respect but black and white images from this lens are beautiful.
Another great video. It is funny how sometimes you do not always pick up things despite having a basic understanding of a tool. For some reason I have always used the range tool to either affect the highlights or darks areas...just didn’t think about bringing both sliders in to affect only the mid tones!🤣
LOL, that's great. To be fair, it's a bit clumsy in that department, not really a substitute for a full luminosity mask approach.
Presets are to photo editing what multivitamins are to health, a rort.
If you’re a beginner, you won’t learn anything by using them.
If you’re a pro, you don’t need them.
It’s my view that your style is innate, it’s within you. Over time you personify your style naturally thus don’t require presets to reproduce a style.
But sometimes the allure of easy street and quick results are a temptation. I get it though, people just want to do the best they can and for some, presets seem like a gateway to improvement.
That’s why it’s your job Alister to teach the people! 😃
Thanks man - I hope to demonstrate that no presets is a far better path, with more satisfaction...
Waiting for this . Hope it will with TK panel.
Sorry no, just in Lightroom
I find your videos so informative and inspiring. I only recently discovered you, through watching Thomas Heaton's Iceland trip, so working my way through you 'back catalogue'. I was contemplating buying your Black and White course but wasn't sure if your RUclips videos are duplicating the material in this or is it much more in depth? You seem to imply that this series of RUclips videos informs your ebook - Luminosity and Contrast?
I loved your videos - 'What's the Point' and 'The Happy Photographer', really uplifting!
Thanks very much. The videos for sale go into way more depth.
Always look forward to a processing video from you. It's interesting to see what you want from the image and how you make it. As an aside, I noticed your watch, is it a Garmin Phenix 5? If so, how often do you have to charge it? I have been wanting one, but never got one because I'm not sure about how long they will run with average use.
Hi Steve, Thanks again for your great feedback. Yes, it's a Phenix 5, I've had it since about April 2017. I love it and the frequency of charging really relies upon how much activity tracking you do. If you did 2-3 hours of activity tracking every day, you'd probably have to charge it weekly. I track a couple of times a week and although I don't diarize how often I charge, it's no more frequent than every 2 weeks or so.
@@ExpressivePhotography thank you Alister, that helps, not as frequent as I was afraid of with low gps usage. That's reasonable.
Alister, excellent video explaining how to do B&W conversions in LR. Do you find that making your B&W conversions in LR on a RAW file to be less destructive to the file and also provide you with more options than say creating a B&W layer in PS and playing with the color sliders of the layer?
Thanks for your input. Each BW conversion tool has its own merits and strengths. I use Lightroom a lot for these online tutorials as I believe they allow the myth that things need to be complicated to be effective. I do use Photoshop a lot, but equally I believe it is important to understand the basic tools can be super powerful.
Great insight to B&W and I think I'm getting my head round using Luminosity and your more minimal style of processing in general with the series over the std Lightroom adjustments.
Do you do a set of PreSets? LOL Just kidding and off to buy the Ebook.
Cheers
LOL, yeah, I should do presets!! The Alister Benn Moody Bundle!
Great stuff once again. Any thoughts on the Adobe Monochrome profiles? (I don't use presets as such but find the profiles often give a good starting point).
Thanks Roger, I'm going to cover some of the Adobe Monochrome stuff next week.
Well, thankyou, i guess, for removing the illusion that I'm just a few thousand dallars worth of rabits away from taking good photographs ... ;)
I have found that I get more enjoyment from puzzling it together mysef than searching for the right preset although, I would ad that looking through a pack of presets now and then, can perhaps expand ones vision a bit and let you see things that were hidden.
Love the explanations although I don’t agree on presets. If you make the same set of adjustments each time, saving them as a preset is a big time saver, even though you will probably tweak them after. Presets are a quick-start to the process, just don’t use them as a one-touch end game. Also the B&W mixer doesn’t help if you shoot in B&W film. There you are back to traditional dodge & burn techniques.
Hi Allison, I've noticed that you tend to use curves to get your black and white points whereas a lot of folks uses the White and Black sliders. Is there a certain number you try to achieve in your method or you just eyeball it watching I assume the histogram? I really love BnW as that is what I started with my career in photography some 47 yrs ago. Thanks in advance for the video and your input.
Wouldn't have watched the video if it wasn't you talking about B&W. Did not produced a single one since the begining of the digital era :D Maybe one day, I will try it again... Thanks Alister !
:-) It has a lot to offer the expressive photographer
Really enjoyed the video and I look forward to the follow ups. I do take a bit of issue with the comment on presets being nothing remotely artistic. Perhaps maybe just a pedantic argument but by those grounds I suppose film shooters were showing zero artistic expression when they decided to swap out their roll of velvia for a roll of provia, or a BW shooter decided to go with a contrasty film over something milder. Maybe if someone were to decide from here on out regardless of the image I will henceforth only use preset X they may be forgoing making artistic decisions but when going through each preset certainly there are still artistic reasons for choosing one over another. In my mind the only difference between that and doing it on your own is the amount of detailed control you have in dialing something in to suit your goals. Even with a preset one not need to be simply reacting to the options if there is sufficient familiarity with what one wants and which preset would give them that look. That being said, I don't use them myself so I am not even sure why I am bothering with the argument haha
Great comment, and a valid reminder to me to not make sweeping generalizations!! I agree with you, and I think I was specifically talking about the click. preset and call it done mentality, which I think is more common than people admit.
It's hard sometimes within the context of a short video that I record without a script to be 100% accurate with statements, and occasionally out of context it will appear that I am being more "black and white" and judgmental than I aim to be.
We'll see how this series develops and I'll try to be more mindful next week.
Thanks again for your insightful comment.
Bonjour depuis la France...je suis prêt...merci d'avance!
Excellent, see you soon
What about crushing the blacks using the black and white sliders? Is that a useful tool to you?
I know this video is a year old but was wondering your opinion on black and white sensors and your feeling on the image making as well as processing. You make great use of the existence ng colour in the b&w processing but how would you approach image making with a monochrome only capture?
I haven't shot with a BW sensor, only having full spectrum digital cameras. I do shoot BW film with my Hasselblad though. With the Hasselblad I am happier with an analog as is image. The image is a moment in time. With digital I use the RAW files to allow for a different experience, where I can manipulate contrast more to suit more variable moods.
Monochrome sensor could be interesting
Indeed, I looked at the Leica, but felt the rest of the system was too restrictive so went with the Fujifilm GFX100s and shoot in monochrome ( only a jpeg preview) but still fun
Can I use your techniques with Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop cc ?
Yeah, pretty much exactly the same between ACR and Lightroom.
Still on CS 4 -- no presets here -- mainly scanning negatives -- where the "processing" was exposure /development >> thanks for the info -- will try to apply ;-) Lots to Learn ~! Shadow .Highlights ( after a few sliders in RAW ) is my main overall for contrast -- then curves.
Lots more coming over the next few weeks, developing some concepts and good practices.
@@ExpressivePhotography Don't think my screen will ever look like yours :: ;-) CS 4 looks way simple still .....LightRoom not updated-able to our version ;-(
CRYSTAL STUDIOS Another CS4 user here - I don’t even have Lightroom of any version - but that’s not the point. It’s the approach that’s different, what are you trying to convey in the final result rather than “I always use this preset/method for this kind of photo” or trying presets until you get a result that “looks nice/epic/just-like-Instagram”. Keep at it!
@@Hirsutechin Have used actions >>> but not since I retired from shooting weddings ...but, yes -- all eyes/ears >> ready to move on...to new tricks
@@Hirsutechin >>>> Not sure I can follow the subscribed steps ---without being on the "same page" ... with Lightroom ...although its all available in CS 4....just maybe attainable with a different slider ;-)
I do have one preset I've created but it's labeled '300mm ai' and amounts to little more than a few basic lens corrections for my ancient telephoto lens.
😀 I think that one’s okay ... I’m more on about “creative processing” presets.
Sorry, but I’m a bit confused. The presentation starts by showing thumbnail images that are b&w out of camera and a brief explanation. Then the example image is a conversion of a color image to b&w. That’s great, but I’m wondering if you “take” b&w picture only as a reference for the potential to convert a color image, or if you actually work with b&w files in post. Everyone says to capture in color then convert to b&w. I’d be very interested in seeing how you work wit mono images Strat from the camera. Cheers.
Most the digital cameras have a monochromatic setting to capture BW images. If the camera was set to record JPEG’s then you would have a BW file. However, if you shoot raw files, then the preview you see on the back of the camera is BW, but the raw file retains the colour information and will be shows when you import the file to Lightroom. Only the preview remains BW in the library. Processing modern digital files means starting with a colour image, but equally, those colour files are vitally important in understanding the potential of the final BW file. There are a few very high end digital cameras that only shoot in BW, but these are out of the financial capacity of most people.
This may sound daft to some but I ask it confident that you will understand. Do you "see" in black & white when shooting? I obviously do not mean literally but in your minds eye.
That's hard to say - sometimes most definitely, other times I use a BW preview to strip the scene down and avoid the distraction of colour. Some images certainly become BW later, especially if I want very high contrast. It's all about flow and not thinking in absolutes.
Looking forward to your video with Nik Collection, I use it with PhotoLab 3 Elite and Affinity Photo,. Surprisingly, they all work well together and can export to/from PhotoLab to Affinity Photo or vice-versa.
Coming soon! - many thanks for your feedback.
The banding illustration is a bit unclear, since RUclips's video compression's artifacts are probably worse than what you were trying to show.
Yes. The limitation of screen recording software and compression. I’ll be bringing out some videos with the new eBook and they’ll obviously be very high quality.
Hi. I liked your video, but I think you are a bit too categorically on presets. I use them from time to time but mostly as a starting point for my own further development of the image. I don’t think it limits my creativity to achieve my goal.
Thanks for the feedback - Yeah, people can do whatever they want, I'm just showing my reasons for not using them. It's a big world out there, I used to use them a lot too.
Why would anyone go to the trouble of finding and recording superb content only to process the file using a preset? It is as ridiculous as letting a public lab not only process your B&W film but then scan the film for you.
So the rumor about the Alister Benn presets for $39.95 this week only, was fake news!
Nah, they're coming next week :-)
The video only starts after 75sec!! Bizarre. Interesting after we can watch it
That's weird, works fine for me - anyone else?