PigPog » monochrome http://pigpog.com Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:03:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 My Attempt at an Ansel Adams Photograph http://pigpog.com/2008/05/18/ansel-adams/ http://pigpog.com/2008/05/18/ansel-adams/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 pigpogm If Ansel Adams Photographed Tables It's actually the table where we had our breakfast/lunch today, at the Canal Tea Gardens. Although I did try converting one to black and white in the camera, this one was taken as colour, with my new Canon G9, then converted to monochrome later in Adobe Lightroom. Sometimes, it's surprising where the best photos come from - it isn't always a journey to anywhere exotic. Here are a couple more shots of the same table:]]> If Ansel Adams Photographed Tables

It’s actually the table where we had our breakfast/lunch today, at the Canal Tea Gardens. Although I did try converting one to black and white in the camera, this one was taken as colour, with my new Canon G9, then converted to monochrome later in Adobe Lightroom.

Sometimes, it’s surprising where the best photos come from – it isn’t always a journey to anywhere exotic. Here are a couple more shots of the same table:

Table at the Tea Gardens

Table Top

]]> http://pigpog.com/2008/05/18/ansel-adams/feed/ 0 Yet More Monochrome Meddling http://pigpog.com/2007/10/10/yet-more-monochrome-meddling/ http://pigpog.com/2007/10/10/yet-more-monochrome-meddling/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 pigpogm Teapot at Teapots I'm really quite pleased with this one. The Nikon 55-200 VR DX lens has some heavy vignetting, but a lot of the time, it gives quite a nice effect, and I like how it's worked here.]]> A quick snap of a metal teapot on the rough wooden table at the Tea Gardens, at the Grand Western Canal (now unfortunately closed for the season, to re-open at Easter) gave me another chance to play with monochrome. Reducing with the Channel Mixer, in the usual way, using The GIMP, then warming the tone up to a nice golden brown shade:

Teapot at Teapots

I’m really quite pleased with this one. The Nikon 55-200 VR DX lens has some heavy vignetting, but a lot of the time, it gives quite a nice effect, and I like how it’s worked here.

]]> http://pigpog.com/2007/10/10/yet-more-monochrome-meddling/feed/ 2 More Monochrome Meddling http://pigpog.com/2007/09/23/more-monochrome-meddling/ http://pigpog.com/2007/09/23/more-monochrome-meddling/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 pigpogm Grass Swirl Mono The last part of our journey is by street, and this chimney pot caught my eye - an H in the sky:]]> We had our usual walk by the canal today, and I did a bit more playing with monochrome when we returned. I took this photo of grass for the pattern and contrast, so it was a prime candidate for black and white:

Grass Swirl Mono

The last part of our journey is by street, and this chimney pot caught my eye – an H in the sky:

H

I used The GIMP’s Chanel Mixer to change the image to monochrome, then added colour to turn it to something resembling sepia:

H Sepia

The H-shaped pot itself looks better in the sepia version, but I think the brickwork looks a bit unreal. Maybe it would have been better with only parts converted?

]]> http://pigpog.com/2007/09/23/more-monochrome-meddling/feed/ 3 Death Star in our Living Room http://pigpog.com/2007/09/16/death-star-in-our-living-room/ http://pigpog.com/2007/09/16/death-star-in-our-living-room/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 pigpogm Death Star]]> I was only taking shots to experiment with the exposure modes on my Nikon D40, but as I was finishing up, I snatched a couple of shots of our light shade that I thought might be good for something. That something turned out to be experimenting with black and white. Practical Photography magazine had a monochrome theme in their latest issue, which gave me a clue on making better mono images, with more options for tweaking.

Their tip was to use the Channel Mixer rather than just changing the colour mode. Their instructions were all for Photoshop, but it translated pretty easily to The GIMP – just find the Channel Mixer under Filters, Colors. Tick the box for Monochrome, and play with the sliders to get the look you want. As the magazine said, the best results seemed to be when the slider values added up to around 100:

Death Star For my next experiment, I did the same thing with the next image, but added some heavy tweaking in Curves, to get a much dirtier effect:

Death Star

Neither are wonderful images, but they both have some interest, and I learned a fair bit just by playing.

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