Working With Multiple Virtual Copies

I woke up to a foggy morning today so I made a french press, grabbed the dog and camera, and hit the woods.

When I got back to download the pictures I made and started editing the images I thought it would be a good opportunity to demonstrate how you can export multiple virtual copies of the same raw file with different contrast and black and white filtration settings from Lightroom. This is to allow you to finely tune to image in photoshop with greater flexibility and less reliance on multiple and possible conflicting adjustment layers.

Since you are also working with image layers made from adjustments to the raw file the tonal range is smoother than if additional adjustment layers were made to a single file with general Lightroom/Camera Raw development settings. 

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Here is the scene as shot and cropped to a 1:2 aspect ratio. 

In the first virtual copy, I got the overall exposure and contrast curve where I wanted—no clipping and a full range of tones. The intention was to keep this version of the image on the flat side as a base to build more contrast in Photoshop.

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Virtual copy of the color version with auto black and white settings and slight increase in contrast.

I then created another virtual copy with  an exaggerated yellow/yellow green filtration and increased contrast. This blows out some of the highlights in the foggy areas, which I will mask out in photoshop (I still find that it is much easier and faster to this masking in Photoshop rather than using the brush adjustments in Lightroom). 

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Virtual copy-2 with exaggerated yellow/green filtration and increased contrast. 

Then I export those two above copies as 16-bit tiffs and then stack the contrasty version on top of the version with less contrast. I can then create a layer mask to paint in the areas where I want the yellow/green filtration version to come through. In the case above it contrast was built up with an inverted layer mask and painting with a white brush at a low opacity/fill amount to reveal differing amounts of the layer. Then I used my standard approach of burning and dodging adjustment layers to achieve the final tonal and structural balance. 

Then I export those two above copies as 16-bit tiffs and then stack the contrasty version on top of the version with less contrast. I can then create a layer mask to paint in the areas where I want the yellow/green filtration version to come through. In the case above it contrast was built up with an inverted layer mask and painting with a white brush at a low opacity/fill amount to reveal differing amounts of the layer. Then I used my standard approach of burning and dodging adjustment layers to achieve the final tonal and structural balance. 

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Final Version

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This is a variation of the same technique with even more yellow/green filtration and increased contrast. This is just to illustrate the importance of not relying on presets and plug-ins for making the initial black and white conversion and contrast adjustments.

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The scene as shot

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Neutral Black and White Conversion

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Exaggerated yellow/green filtration and greatly increased contrast.

The final version below incorporated the lower two virtual copies on the left as well as additional curves adjustments layers, which were set to different blend modes to further separate out some of the more subtle tones. I will go more into blend modes and which ones work best in certain situations in a future post.

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Final Version

So What is Creativity?

Everyone is and can be creative. It is an innate trait stretching back to the first people who picked up a rock to use as a tool. Look at a toddler and tell me some people aren't born with creativity (it is everything else that gets in the way of creativity as we become adults). 

If it is impossible to create something new where nothing existed previously, then new things can only be created from the transformation and connection of existing things. In art it can be thought of as making connections between seemingly completely unrelated things or ideas. Prehistoric humans didn't create the rock or the bird they killed with it. They made the connection between the rock on the ground, the bird, and dinner in their belly.

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Near Egilsstaðir, Iceland, 2004

So what is creativity in the photographic sense?

It has nothing to do with visualization, Sorry, Ansel...

If all you are doing is creating things you've already visualized then the actually making of it becomes drudgery, and  ultimately unrewarding. You can't learn to see anything new if all you are creating are the images floating around in your consciousness. Even less so if you are hampered by preconceptions, expectations, and rules.

What IS rewarding, and what mastery allows for, is the ability to tap into the images floating around in you subconscious. It is getting to the mental/emotional space for your innate creativity to connect all those ideas and things you have previously seen into completely new ideas—new pictures.

You can call it Zen, the Zone, Transcendence, etc. but all you have is yourself, a tool, and the thing in font of you. And it is up to you to get out of your own way and allow yourself to see the connection between them. 

What is Mastery Anyway?

Before I started this site and settled on the name BWMastery.com I thought long and hard about the perception people might have of me calling myself a "master" at this digital black and white stuff.

I've always been one to run away from those calling themselves a guru of anything, and here I am with a site based on Mastery and telling people I can show them the path to it. So how is this site any different, and why should you not run away too (or come after me with torches and pitchforks)? 

Mastering something is essentially a process of learning something, applying it, measuring the results, and then recalibrating your perception and reaction to the thing in front of you. You do that again, and again, and again . . . until it becomes second nature. 

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This process can be done on your own, but usually requires many years of practice, failing and learning. And even then, you might be missing something that a well-informed teacher or thoughtful critique could have corrected or tweaked earlier in the process. This is exactly why people seek teachers, seek mentors, and attend master-classes. For the most part, technique is easy, and refining the skills associated with any technique simply boils down to practice and knowing when to use the tool. 

So what exactly IS mastery in photography? I think it is like other creative pursuits where people talk about being "in the zone" when doing something—playing basketball, playing music, photographing. Mastery is the point where everything fades to the background and you can reach new creative heights. I think of it as state of being without friction. 

Photography—cameras, lights, printing in the darkroom, or digitally in photoshop—takes brain power, or bandwidth, as it's being referred to now. When you have to think about the process or technical aspects of what you are doing it takes bandwidth away from creativity.

In the few posts I will address what I refer to as 'creativity' in regards to photographing and the editing process. 

Digital Black and White

I have been working more and more lately with photographers who are transitioning from the analog black and white darkroom to printing digitally. Those photographers have a firm grasp on traditional techniques and aesthetic possibilities of the gelatin-silver print and want to achieve the same, if not better, results in the digital darkroom. They just don't know exactly where to start. 

In addition to my own photography and retouching and printing work for other artists, I have been doing a lot of phone and in-person consultations over the last few years and have been meaning to put together some collected resource of some of the techniques I use, which might not be apparent to those photographers making the analog to digital transition and for photographers already working digitally who want to get more from their black and white printing. 

In the weeks and months to come I will be starting to make online video tutorials, examples of my personal digital workflow, and techniques printing with Quad Tone Rip. Please stay tuned and sign up below for future updates. 

Richard Boutwell