We would all wish that fuel issues would be disclosed in black and white, but because we are often left in the dark on many things concerning fuel pricing, we are left with a dark and looming image of what lies ahead.

I think the picture is perfect for the mood!

it is wonderful, and the first one is the most beautiful, I enjoyed reading the details, I wish I have found your site long time ago, please I wish if you write some about how to improve the quality of pictures, I would love to read and learn,

Thank you very much for all this,

Regards.

Of course I do not mind !

You know what ? I think I will try it right away and see how it goes

Of the 5 images I like your rendition the best. It captures the mood and we are able to see all the detail.

Niels

I actually think that since you struggle with B&W that you are doing good job but trying to understand what will work within your image.

In colour image we are fortunate that we have 2 types of contrast to play with to better enhance or isolate the subject. Colour contrast (Red-green, Blue Yellow, etc) and tonal contrast (dark light), whereas in B&W we only have one of these. But this can also be a benefit as then we may not have competing colour contrast that does not match the tonal contrast.

If you don’t mind a suggestion with B&W either print out the B&W image or leave open screen, but start marking out (with pen or a new layer in Photoshop) before you make any enhancement. Try and determine the following compositional elements if present.

1) Identify the main subject
2) Are there supporting elements that support the subject and visual flow (lines, triangles, curves, etc)?
3) What is the dominate high-contrast area in image as this is normally where the eye will go and does this support subject?
3) How does your vision move through the image?
4) Are there any distracting elements at edges or within image and these need to be softened?
5) How do you what the overall mood to be (dark and moody or high key)
6) Is there information in the extreme of the darks or lights that need to be preserved?

These may not all apply but if you first analyze your image in this manner, then it will be easier to make the changes and you now have a target model. If you look at my last blog entry you will see some of these elements in the decisions I made to create the B&W image. Not a perfect model but I hope it helps.

I also suggest that sometimes you work quickly and crudely (10-25min) on another version to test changes but don’t worry about masks edges and such. It is only meant to help with visual clues, before you spent too much times editing and then are unable to see the forest fort the tress.

Niels Henriksen

You did a great job here IMHO