today, i was making valentines for kendal and holly (for their classes, for the family, etc.) and i realized that i have yet to print grammy christmas pictures as she requested almost a month ago. so, in efforts to "de-holiday" them, i decided to make them black and white.
problem. i hit a road block, big time. i love our christmas pictures, one of the things i love most about them is all the color and the way they were processed - IN color. i did not process them with the intent on converting them to B&W - and i did not save the raw files. so, i am left with the color images to desaturate somehow. i know that sounds simple, but it is not.
i have several "action" sets that do it in several different ways, plus photoshop has about 7 options for converting to black and white - and all of them are different.
so let me give you an example here of one i'm sorta stuck on. i think the rest turned out OK but the ones that were the hardest were the ones of just holly. and, that would be because she had on a "loud" dress. it isn't loud until you desaturate. i realize these differences are subtle, but they are huge to me.
[oh, and to give credit where it is due, i didn't take this picture. Rebecca Gilliam did during our "christmas trade portrait session" (where i took her family and she took mine). we did our own processing.]
here is the color version:
the first one here is my attempt - from scratch - to convert it. it is my least favorite of the four.
on this one, i used one of kelsey anderson's actions. it is a wonderful action but it did not do well on this picture.
this one is the pioneer women's black and white action converter. this one is usually my "fail safe" black and white converter.. but, in this case, holly's face appears overexposed still.
this one ends up being my favorite, if i can have one (the color version is still my favorite). i think her face doesn't appear to bright, and her dress is ok too. this is one of MCP's actions.
which one do you like the most?
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