Merry Christmas and remember why we celebrate the day. It was a baby boy born some 2,000 years ago that changed the world.
My friend Jimmy loaned me a Tokina build 70–210mm f/3.5 Vivitar Series 1 zoom lens in Nikon mount a couple of days ago. I was complaining about Tokina lenses. (The truth is I have another Tokina-branded lens in about this focal length, but a bit slower, and its sharpness is nothing to write home about. But I digress…) He told me to go shoot it and then report back. So I did.
It was a bit late for good light, but I noticed enough interesting contrast on the hillside a mile or so away to make a capture. I wanted to play some with black and white conversions in Photoshop and needed a few frames. So, here is an early example of a Photoshop conversion to black and white. I used a bit of curves to adjust the white and black points. I adjusted the contrast curve slightly. Then I used the Photoshop black and white tool to make the conversion.
It’s basically the equivalent of a yellow filter (for film) with the yellow dialed back just enough to moderate the highlights in the brightest of the rocks. I’m taking a class to learn to do some of these things. I’m not really Photoshop literate. I think it’s time I learned something about this tool.