When Color Becomes Black And White

As I have been working on my flower photographs, I have found that some images just seem to 'work' in black and white.  And I have found that it can sometimes be difficult to predict when that is going to be the case.  What I have therefore been doing is to take photos where the flowers have interesting forms and shapes and quickly try a black and white conversion.  By that I mean spending 60 seconds on it, or, at times, just looking at it in Lightroom by hovering over a series of  black and white presets that I have, even though I don't do my conversions in Lightroom (I use the Silver Efex Pro plug in for Photoshop......not that you can't do a great conversion in Lightroom....you can). If one of these quick exercises look promising, then I will start over and spend the amount of time needed to really work on getting the conversion I would like. This generally involves first making a color image with good color and tonal separation (which might mean that it doesn't look the way I would particularly want the finished color version to look), spot it, and convert to black and white with Silver Efex Pro.  I then generally work on local areas of the image with curves and, more recently, both curves and a dodge and burn layer.

To illustrate, below are three color images.  Two of them did not seem to 'work' for me in black and white.  I force myself to 'give up' when I find I am really pushing and pushing and can't make it work.  Which one became the one with a black and white conversion that 'worked' and will become part of my black and white botanical project? Don't cheat.....scroll down slowly and just look at the color images first! See what you would predict.  The black and white versions with my opinion are further on down.

Trillium erectum forma luteum

Copyright Howard Grill

About Face

Copyright Howard Grill

Orchid

Copyright Howard Grill

And now for the black and white versions:

Trillium erectum forma luteum

Black and White Version

Copyright Howard Grill

The image above (Trillium erectum forma luteum) is the one that 'works' for me in black and white.  There is a nice range of tones and contrasts, from the black background to the dark center with white petals and gray leaves.  I liked it as soon as I saw it.

Aas for the two black and white images below........they don't seem to work for me.  They don't have a wide enough tonal range with enough contrast and they are not going to be included in my collection. However, I wasn't sure of this before I made the conversion.

Both images are ones that I learned a lesson with.  I liked the color versions and kept spending time 'pushing' to make a black and white version that I liked.  But it just wasn't working.  My lesson was that when it comes to these conversions you will generally know pretty quickly if it is going to work in black and white.  If the time you are spending isn't fine tuning, but, rather a continued effort to make the black and white version work....well, there is a reason for that!

About Face

Black and White Version

Copyright Howard Grill

Orchid

Black and White Version

Copyright Howard Grill