I’ve been revisiting my archives back to my early digital files, some as far back as 2000, when I got my first digital camera. What’s nice to see is that those old CD’s (Yes, CD’s!) can still be opened on our new computers and loaded into Photoshop!
I can open these old JPEGs in Camera Raw and do my favorite tweaks I do today with my new DSLR’s RAW files. After that I go to my favorite plug-ins for some artistic interpretations.
Here’s a finished artistic version of a file from 2003…
This image was form my second digital camera—the Fuji FinePix S-2 Pro, which produced jpegs at around 4.0 MB. Not much by todays standards, but we managed, with careful exposes, to produce some outstanding 30x40 images from our S2’s back then.
Black & White Processing Technique:
Step 1—NIK HDR Effects Pro 2 (Single Image Tone Mapping). Used Grannys Attic Preset with my modifications.
Step 2—NIK Silver Effects Pro 2—Used the Antique Plate 2 and modified it to my B&W taste.
Here’s the original file…
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| f13.0 @ 1/180 sec., ISO 400 |
This was an old hotel under renovation in Sacramento, California. I thought, with those ripped and tattered window shades, that it had the kind of creepy vibe that I could do something with.
Here’s the Color Interpretation….
I like this version mostly because of that red triangle in the second window (top left). It looks like a broken shard of glass. I like the rust stains on the paint beneath the windows as well.
Color Processing Technique:
NIK HDR Effects Pro-2 (Single Image Tone Mapping).I used the Granny’s Attic Preset and tweaked it to my taste.
NOTE: In addition to the obvious artistic changes to the original file a side benefit of processing an image in NIK’s HDR is that the size of the file is increased a lot. With this image the original file was increased from 3.69MB to 6.06MBs.
However, I think that the Black and White rendition of this scene promotes the creepy vibe I imagined when I saw this building. What do you guys think—the color or the Black and White?
’Til next week….
Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman
Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com
Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com
