How do you create mood
measekite
that are very dark and moody. I do not know if they are intentionally
underexposed or made that way in a photo editor. Many times mist and fog
was added.
Does anyone know how to do this?
nick c
Desaturating a color photo to make a B&W photo is an easily done
common computer practice. I would venture a guess desaturating may
even be the easiest as well as the preferred method that many people
use. Applying mists and fogs to photos can be easily done through the
use of applicable program plug-in filters. I suppose one may be able
to buy plug-in filters that will do just about anything one wants to
do to a photo. However, plug-in filters are not my preferred method of
generally altering a photo. Old habits still drive me towards doing
the most that can be done through the use of the camera. Reasons
being, I wasn't all that great in applying wet darkroom techniques to
enhance my photos and as for applying dry darkroom techniques through
the use of computers, well, I found myself spending a great many hours
doing computer work when I much rather be taking pictures.
mianileng
As for converting color photos to B&W, I use Irfanview almost
exclusively. One can use either "Convert to grayscale" or
desaturating with "Color corrections" (Shift + G). Results
produced by the two methods look the same, but whereas the
greyscale picture is 8-bit (256 shades), the second one is still
technically 24-bit (16.7 million). The ratio of resultant file
sizes in uncompressed format is 1:3.
Alan Smithee
news:R49hl.11573$W06....@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
Do you mean like these?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cadm/3224186483/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loomax/3165940801/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsgreg/3049211090/
measekite
In that general direction but much sharper. The question was not so much
how to desaturate but to create mood. And I do know about some plug-ins
to create fog but not mist. But I want to know about how to expose for
this and what to do after.
C J Campbell
They may be intentionally underexposed. They may be manipulated in
processing. Or the scene might have just looked like that.
I prefer the latter method. Set up the scene and light it to get the
effect I want, then expose it properly.
When I was a kid taking photography classes in college, we were taught
to try to 'see' in black and white -- to think in terms of line, shape,
and light and dark without regard to color.
Even in Photoshop today, I do not merely desaturate an image when
converting it to black and white. I know in advance how I want the
image to look and will manipulate the color channels, burn, dodge, and
even change the color of 'black' to get what I want.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor
Stephen Bishop
wrote:
There is no one way to create "mood." First you have to define what
mood it is you want to create and how it would apply to a particular
scene you are photographing. Merely applying techniques to an image
to get some kind of effect usually results in a sterile and
uninteresting picture.
As to the actual techniques, depending on what you want to create
there are usually many, many ways to skin a cat. I'd suggest you
start with some books that deal with previsualization in photography;
most of what Ansel Adams wrote is excellent. Once you understand the
difference between an actual scene and how you want to express it in
the final print, the actual techniques are easy.
whisky-dave
> On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:56:28 +0000, Alan Smithee wrote:
>
>> "measekite" <inkys...@oem.com> wrote in message
>> news:R49hl.11573$W06....@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
>>>I have seen many photographs (many in BW that was desaturated from color)
>>> that are very dark and moody. I do not know if they are intentionally
>>> underexposed or made that way in a photo editor. Many times mist and
>>> fog
>>> was added.
>>>
>>> Does anyone know how to do this?
>>
>>
>> Do you mean like these?
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cadm/3224186483/
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/loomax/3165940801/
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsgreg/3049211090/
>
> In that general direction but much sharper. The question was not so much
> how to desaturate but to create mood.
in yea olde days I used a yellow, orange or red filter over the lens (with
black & white film)
which increased contrast, darkened the sky and brought out the clouds etc..
Pat
Oh I can't believe I am responding but what the heck. Mood is VERY
subjective and is horrible term. Wouldn't a colorful image of a 4-
year-old blowing out birthday candles have a "mood" to it?
I think what you are looking at is two things. Lighting and lighting.
Film/sensors have a scale of colors and/or luminosity that they can
record. You are looking for ones where there aren't very many light
colors. That's a matter of exposure and/or post-processing. My only
two recommendations on this would be to either (preferred) shut off
everything that says "automatic" on your camera. Set it to manual and
go learn photography. You'll be 300 or 400 exposures before you start
to figure anything out but it'll be worth it. You'll be working in
low light so shut off autofocus as well. A tripod might come in
handy.
Second, most of the pictures you are thinking about have specific
lighting. Generally I would image that have 1 strong (and maybe
harsh) light source from a site. You don't want soft lighting --
otherwise everything just turns gray.
No one can teach you but this will get you started. Give yourself a
couple of weeks to learn it and a couple of years to get good at it.
Pat
P.S. Don't forget to play with your level of contrast. Many of the
photos you like (if we are talking about the same thing) are pretty
contrasty.