Which pp do you prefer?

[batmura]

#1

Riva 3 by batmura, on Flickr

#2

Riva 2 by batmura, on Flickr

[Jeremy Roussak]

The second one looks, with respect, absolutely ghastly. I think it probably shows more detail than the first, but the toning is really unpleasant. IMHO, naturally.

Jeremy

[batmura]

Thanks, Jeremy. I appreciate your honest C&C.

[KMRennie]

First one for me. The tone in the second one is not for me even though it looks as though it has more detail in the bright areas.
Ken

[mrazster]

The first one...by far.
The post processing is lovely...love the grayscale !

[john beardsworth]

#1

But burn in the  sky .

[batmura]

What do you mean by "burn in the sky" John? Were you suggesting I should have shot during sunset perhaps?

[john beardsworth]

No, it's from darkroom language (used in Photoshop's dodge and burn tools) and means to darken. What are you using - Photoshop? If so, try adding a curves adjustment layer to darken the sky and apply a graduated mask to it - like adding a neutral grad. While a light sky invites the eye to drift up and out of the frame,  this will push the eye into the body of the image.

[batmura]

John, I am using Lightroom and I already darkened the sky a bit despite having used a grad filter. I didN't think making too dark would work. Thanks for your valuable feedback. I will try that in the future.

[john beardsworth]

One idea that often works on skies is to give the LR grad filter a negative value for the highlights or for the shadows - it can be more subtle and targeted than negative exposure - and you can always apply a few grads to build up the effect.

In general, the eye is attracted to the lighter areas of a B&W image, so light regions near the picture's edge tend to lead the viewer out of the frame and away from the subject. So B&W's often benefit from a little "edge burning" where the edges are darkened and hold the image together (that's the vignetting in the Effects panel). But I certainly wouldn't want to impose my taste on you - just encourage you to do more B&W.

[batmura]

John, what you described in the second paragraph about using vignettes makes perfect sense. Thanks so much for broadening my horizon! I would really experiment more with monochrome, but so far I have been dissatisfied with my processing. I am also using Silver Efex Pro 2 because it has some nice presets.

What I am not clear about is giving the grad filter in LR a negative value. I actually pulled the highlights all the way to the left while also darkening the exposure a stop. Then, I boosted the contrast. Should I have only pushed the highlights without touching anything else and add another grad filter on top of it repeating the step?

Thanks a lot for your help and time!

[Roman Racela]

I like the 1st one but make the sky a tad bit darker. I would like to see a revision of the 2nd image with 50% less toning.