Black and White #37

I don't know the names of hardly any flowers. Or plants in general.

I've been trying to figure out how to separate colors in black and white photos.

My new Elements 7 has a lot of neat new features when compared to my previous version (v4), and I've had the desire to sit and play more.

Simply removing the color from a color image will almost always result in an UGLY black and white shot, as will simply turning it from a color photo to a grayscale image.

I've finally found a couple of different processes in Elements that allow me to convert a color shot into a nice, contrasty black and white that I like.

When I first removed the color from this shot, the blossoms and the greenery were nearly the same shade of gray.

But I'm happy with this one, though I'm still learning.

You can see the original outrageous color of these flowers on my other blog today at Picture Post, Sunday, September 27, 2009.