Tag Archive for: black&white

On a tight leash

On a tight leash. A kid and his grandfather, playing between the water fountains in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

A grandfather playing with his grandson between the fountains of Piata Unirii in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Playing, but keeping him on a tight leash!

This photo was first processed in Adobe Lightroom for the basic adjustments (crop, color temperature, lens and perspective correction). Most of the work has been handled in Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro. I really enjoyed using the different structure levels in order to get a fully detailed image. It’s such a powerful tool!

Interested in licensing this photo? Give a look over there!

About this photo:

  • Camera: Canon 6D
  • Lens: Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • Focale: 53mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/800s
  • ISO: 200
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2015
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This reflection

This reflection

This shot has been taken in next to Mihai Viteazu square in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We’re not having a very nice summer this year: low-ish temperatures and rain showers are quite common. That’s perfect for me as I don’t like the hot weather, and I love to shoot under the rain! People are rushing, trying to protect from the rain in funny ways… Cluj’s streets are sometimes not very straight and offer some puddles for me to use for this kind of photography, where I try to have a nice reflection of a buildings, of the people, etc. Let’s use the city’s perks in a creative way!

For this photo, on the processing part, nothing really fancy: standard Adobe Lightroom workflow, with a bit of dodge and burn on both the buildings: the real one, to make its lines pop, and the one in the reflection, in order to see it more clearly. I can’t say it was really clean water…

Interested in buying this photo? Take a look over there.

About this photo:

  • Camera: Canon 6D
  • Lens: Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
  • Aperture: ƒ/8.0
  • Focale: 35mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/320s
  • ISO: 100
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2015
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Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro presets – Black & White

For today’s Processing Tuesday we leave a bit Adobe Lightroom for another great tool, Google’s Nik Collection‘s Silver Efex Pro 2.

Silver Efex Pro 2 is my “go to” plugin for awesome black and white photography. Lightroom’s black and white module is quite useful, but is far from being as powerful as Silver Efex Pro. You have much more control on the contrast and the structure (+/- clarity on Lightroom), that can be global or separated for highlights, mid tones and shadows. And those Control Points… I think I’ll have to make a few articles about it 🙂

Today’s free presets, or recipes as they’re called in Nik, are my 2 favourites for Silver Efex Pro. They are pretty bright presets, that I use for street photography mainly. Let’s see how they do on this photo of an old Trabant’s “portrait”, in a very good shape, and with little hearts on the eyes:

Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - OriginalSilver Efex Pro 2 recipes – Original. https://pierrepichot.com
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - Original
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - Original
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - High Structure
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - High Structure
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - High Key
Silver Efex Pro 2 recipes - High Key

So we have:

  • High structure: structure/clarity oriented preset, perfect for highly detailed photos.
  • High key: a highlight oriented preset, much softer than the High Structure one. Goes well for portraits.

Just click a bit down to download these 2 free Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro 2 presets, and have fun!

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See you next Tuesday for more processing resources!

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During the Hungarian Students Days…

It’s Friday, time for a new pic of the week 🙂 And good news, I’m still in love with black and white street photography:

A group of hungarian students going to the kick off demonstration for the Hungarian Student Days 2015 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. One of them was quite... sexy ;)

During my lunch break at work I met with a group of hungarian students going to the kick off demonstration for the Hungarian Students Days 2015 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. One of them was quite… sexy 😉

I really like this portrait. Maybe technically it’s not the best photography I’ve ever taken but it has this power, this dynamic, this contrast… and a guy with a wig, an instant classic 😀 I’m just a bit sad I couldn’t manage to go and take more photos of the Students Days, it is usually pretty fun and quite original.

This photo was processed using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for the standard workflow and then with Google’s Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro 2.

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Five black knights

Five black knights

I crossed this group of black dressed people next to Piata Unirii in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Just after, having the sidewalk free, they spread in line, and walked like if they were in a movie. I immediately thought of the Nazguls, the infamous black knights (well… kings actually… nevermind) from The Lord of the Rings 😀

This photo has been processed with one of my favorite softwares ever, Google’s Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro, with of course my standard Lightroom workflow.

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