DPP-Part 3; Exercise 6

Exercise; Strength of interpretation

This exercise is to experiment with the removal of colour and tonal range, I have to choose two images that would best suit the following adjustments;-

·         A strong increase in contrast that will include clipping (loss of detail) in at least the shadow areas

·         Low or high key treatment in which the entire brightness range is shifted down or up the scale

I have to create these effects in colour and black and white, to be able to recognise how each colour would appear, whether light or mid-tone or dark.

 

1^st image - Original

This is my original image, I have not edited this in any way, I think it’s a good image to use as I can lose the detail in the shadow areas in the water.

 

1^st Black and white-strong increase in contrast

I feel this is a really dramatic effect, a very dark and light one, as the key notes suggest, I used a strong S curve, although I had not pronounced the light areas as much, as the image already had a very strong white element to it, I knew the image would end up like this, as I use my curves all the time, whether it to make an image “Pop” or to drastically change it.

 

2^nd Black and white-low or high key treatment

For this image, I first used my levels and brought down the mid-tones and moved the highlights to the left to gain a high key treatment but to make it look like a low dynamic image. After that, I used the curves to make it a lot less dynamic, I think I prefer the dramatic image in the black and white.

 

1^st Colour-strong increase in contrast

 I did the same in this image as I did in the first black and white image. As the notes suggest, this does not work as well in colour as it did in the black and white, it’s so over exaggerated, it looks fake and unnatural.

 

2^nd Colour-low or high key treatment

Again, I used the same procedure as with the black and white images by using the curves and levels.  I actually like this image, although, I do actually prefer the original. I like the colour in the water, the sky is a bit ‘off’ and some of the detail is lost in the building due to the overexposure when lightening the image.

 

2^nd image - Original

This is the original image, I chose it because there is a bit of detail in the branch and I knew that I could lose the detail when editing, but also gain it back, as before, I have not edited this image in any way.

 

1^st Black and white-strong increase in contrast

I really like this adjustment, as with the previous set of images, I used exactly the same components for all of the following four pictures.

As previously mentioned, I knew the detail of the branch would be lost and the ground and rocks in the background would be accentuated.

 

2^nd Black and white-low or high key treatment

I never thought I would, but I like this image. I think the detail is good and there is a sort of tonal difference in the branch, almost a slight hue of metallic to it.

 

1^st Colour-strong increase in contrast

Again, as the notes suggest, the colour version looks extreme, but I think this photo works better than the photo in the first set, I really love the way the background colours come to life and are very pronounced.

2^nd Colour-low or high key treatment

This high/low key treated image is good, but by losing the blue in the image, it loses the mountains in the background, the branch does look goo though, maybe if I were to process this image, I would splice the two together to get the look I want to achieve.

All in all, this exercise was very helpful in the strength of the tonal ranges and understanding them, by using my curves and levels, I rarely experiment with the mid-tones and will do so now more often so to achieve an exciting new look.