When I asked Dr. Doodle if I could post her color High Line photo on my photoblog since I liked it so much, I also asked if she had a black and white photo she'd like to post as well. This is the one she sent me:

However, in her e-mail to me, she made the mistake of saying, "so if you want to (1) play with it, (2) put it up as is, (3) nix it, those are all fine with me." I would have just put it up as it is, but given the license to play with it, I ran with it. I worked with the original color version of her image to see if I could bring back some of the detail in the skyline. In her black and white version, she had actually gotten rid of the skyline on purpose, and I think maybe she was right to do so because it lends more of a focus on the High Line itself and becomes less of a scene overlooking the Hudson.

But I'm obsessed with retaining as much detail as possible, so this is what I did with the photo:

(By the way, do you recognize those old pier pylons out in the water from this shot I took in September?)

If you're interested in how I did the black and white conversion, here are my steps:

1. New Layer -> Channel Mixer -> Monochrome -> Red 15%, Green 100%, Blue -15%
2. Select top half of photo -> Feather 8 pixels
3. New Layer -> Curves -> Adjust the line so that it "sags" just a little bit in the middle (this helps add a bit of contrast).
4. Reselect top half of photo -> Inverse -> Feather 8 pixels
5. New Layer -> Curves -> Adjust the line so that it looks more like an S (pull down on the bottom left end and raise up on the top right end; this helps to make the darks darker and the lights lighter)
6. I resized the photo to be 525 px in height, flattened it, and then sharpened it with the unsharp mask: amount 150%, radius 0.2 pixels, threshold 0 levels.

I liked the end result for having a good amount of detail, but I think it lost some of the atmosphere that Dr. Doodle had created in her high contrast version. I tried to add some old New York atmosphere by adding sepia toning. I liked the result, probably partly because it increased the contrast, but I think maybe sepia toned photos of New York are a bit cliche. :)

In case you're interested, here's how I did it:

1. Layer -> New Fill Layer -> Solid Color
2. Pick whatever color you want for now, set the opacity to 25% (both will be changed later), and set the mode to "Overlay"
3. Pick the exact color you want (I chose something like a burnt siena).
4. Once you click OK, change the opacity in the layer window (I changed it to 37%).

I sent both versions to her, with a note that I wasn't completely happy with the results, mainly because I thought that her high contrast version was more interesting in spite of the lack of detail in the skyline. She brilliantly took the photo and simply added more contrast, and I think she was absolutely right. This final version is the photo that's posted at the top of this page, and again below.

I think that as I've learned more about Photoshop and about photography in general, I've become more focused on detail and toning, maybe to the point that I've started to overlook the total composition. I think that often my photos lack punch because I've worked so much to bring out detail that I am afraid to use too much contrast. I've become more aware of this, and in the last few photos I've posted here I've tried to use more contrast, but even so, I was very modest with this photo from Dr. Doodle.

What do you think of the various versions?