DPP Exercise16 - Strength of Interpretation

This is the original colour image that was processed in Camera Raw. The next image shows the effect of applying a Curves layer to create a strong contrast.

As can be seen the colours, particularly the oranges and the reds, are badly effected making them unreal. The blue of the sky is more acceptable but even so there is a sense of it being 'wrong' in some way.

The original colour image as shown above was converted to black and white:

The conversion was carried out so that the overall effect was neutral. Again a strong contrast curve was used to produce the following effect:

As suggested in the Course material a much stronger curve was applied than with the colour version without any strange or unexpected results. Although there has been loss of detail in the shadows overall the image remains acceptable and certainly is more dramatic.

The second series of images tackle the high key effects. The first image is the original:

The image was taken in a workhouse laundry and the shadow figures were created by technology. Using this as the base image the next image shows the effect of using levels to create a high key image.

I found that there was a need to be careful in applying the Curves adjustments to avoid odd effects particularly on the sheets onto which the shadows were projected.

The original image was converted to black and white and again the conversion was carried out to achieve an overall neutrals effect with the following result:

Using this image as the base a high key effect was tried for using levels:

Once again a much stronger use of levels was possible without any unwanted changes to the image.

I am not sure that I was able to anticipate how individual colours would appear in black and white versions. Much seemed to depend upon the lightness of the colour in the image rather than being a product of the colour itself. Light areas remain light whatever the colour although there are probably differences because of the reflectivity of the colours. My memory of taking pictures in black and white when that was more the norm is of assessing the image in terms of the contrast within the picture knowing that a flat diffused light would produce a flat low contrast image. For those with their own darkroom or access to a skilled darkroom technician the impact of the image was created by manipulation of the light falling on the negative in the development process.