Here’s another recent Leica M10 image rendered in monochrome. This image required very little post processing from DNG to the final JPG.
In traditional printing techniques, like lithography, the print process moves through a set of “states”, from initial image through final image as the plate is worked. Sometimes those states are printed and may continue to exist as alternative versions of the final edition. Digitally, while there’s much more freedom to work and rework in an iterative process, there is still a necessary movement from state to state.
I begin with a RAW file, the data collected by the sensor sites in the camera. It’s a final, irreversible state since that exact capture can never be duplicated. It’s important that the capture be seen as an initial state, though, not the final image. It is the raw material that feeds the rest of the process.
In these images, the next state is the monochrome image. This image, so close to monochrome at capture, was converted in Adobe Camera Raw inside of Photoshop. The grass stalks are yellow orange in the light of a setting sun. So that color can be used to bring them to the lightest tone in the image. Then it’s a matter of a few layers to improve the sense of depth. It’s useful to thing of workflow as moving through print like states.
A word of thanks to Dave Morrow, who has been building an incredible site and set of YouTube tutorials on capture and post processing. His work has been a big motivation for me to get outside and capture some real landscapes outside of my usual suburban environment. Dave’s discussion of Color Theory is great example of how engineering and aesthetics contribute to the experience of creating and viewing images.