David Lowe – Black and White Conversion – Friday 19th November 2021

Last night we welcomed David Lowe from Smethwick to give his presentation, via zoom, on black and white conversions.

The first half of the evening David detailed the pros and cons of the different methods of black and white conversions; these being:

· Greyscale

· Desaturate

· In Camera

· RAW

· Channel Mixer

· Photoshop Black and White Conversion

· Nik Filters Silver Efex.

David primarily uses the Nik Filters for his conversions, and during the second half he showed us how he worked through several conversions using it, using the following workflow. He emphasised that this workflow can be utilised with whichever method of conversion is used, not just Nik.

1. Vision

2. RAW Conversion

3. Straighten – if necessary

4. Crop, again if necessary

5. Tidy up image – any cloning, spot removal etc.

6. Denoise

7. Sharpen

8. Make any selections required on colour image

9. B&W Conversion

10.Adjust individual tones in the image.

David will be forwarding detailed notes of his presentation for anyone who wants them. Our thanks to David for an interesting and informative evening which I’m sure will help some of us in our preparation of images for our next competition – 4th Open Mono. A reminder that these images should be with the Competition Secretary by Friday 3rd December.

Next week Roger Hance makes a welcome return with Capturing the Decisive Moment