From one of our own

Valentia

I've edited this post a few times because I wasn't sure if it was really real. if you follow my drift. Probably not. Nevermind.

Our newest member Greysoul has a site that I feel ye should all see.

http://noahgrey.com/

Carrigman

Excellent site. Interesting individual.Thanks for the link.

Valentia

Hey Greysoul, come in and pull up a chair. You are very welcome!

Fenster

Some class photos there, for sure

Greysoul

Hey there. (pulls up a metaphorical chair) Thanks so much for the warm welcome. I'm very new to both boards.ie and Ireland itself, and I deeply appreciate it.

I'm not sure what you mean about being real though... my partner is Franknfurter (a longtime boards user) and he can, uh, vouch for the fact that I exist.

johnny b

yup its for real. sent email to him and got response. was blown outa d water with d site myself:eek:

Valentia

I'm not sure what you mean about being real though

Natural Irish suspicion I've been caught once or twice here before. Great to have a genius on board. Your work is sooooooo good.

Enough fawning! How the hell do you do it, apart from having a great eye of course!

Greysoul

I've heard about that Irish suspicion. But no worries... if anything, with as long as I've been on the web and the things I've done, it's kind of cute/flattering in an odd way!

And yeah, I'd be happy to talk about any photo-geek stuff. I'd hate sounding like some big self-important expert though, I've just been lucky enough to make a living doing what I love to do anyway.

peepingtom

Greysoul wrote:

I've heard about that Irish suspicion. But no worries... if anything, with as long as I've been on the web and the things I've done, it's kind of cute/flattering in an odd way!

And yeah, I'd be happy to talk about any photo-geek stuff. I'd hate sounding like some big self-important expert though, I've just been lucky enough to make a living doing what I love to do anyway.

if you could start somewhere near rhe beginning ... and work towards the present, that would be just grand ...

evilhomer

Hi Greysoul.

Some brilliant stuff on your site there. I'm a big fan of B/W photography myself.

Greysoul wrote:

And yeah, I'd be happy to talk about any photo-geek stuff.

Since you have given permission

How much post processing do you do on average on a photo?
Some of the photo's look really contrasty, which I like btw.
Is that from playing with the levels at a later stage or are you just a genius who can take a photo like that au-naturelle

Fenster

evilhomer wrote:

Hi Greysoul.

Some brilliant stuff on your site there. I'm a big fan of B/W photography myself.



Since you have given permission

How much post processing do you do on average on a photo?
Some of the photo's look really contrasty, which I like btw.
Is that from playing with the levels at a later stage or are you just a genius who can take a photo like that au-naturelle

What he said. Oh and can I touch you, sir? Just for good luck... Really...;)

Greysoul

Yeah, I do a lot of post-processing work, most of it in straight RAW conversion (using PS's Camera Raw), plus dodging/burning/leveling... I'm very much of the "it's not about what the camera sees, but what I see" philosophy. For me it's all about the end result, the emotional quality to be brought out of the moment, and whatever it takes to get there is just the means to that end.

Fenster wrote:

What he said. Oh and can I touch you, sir? Just for good luck... Really...;)

Well... um... uh... sure, I'm always glad to shake hands...

Valentia

Sorry I hed to leave and missed the follow up. I hope you really don't mind but it's rare to see such class work. What gets me about your photographs is that it is really black and white. Of course there is grey (irish spelling) but when I, and most people I know, mess with PS it is grey. It's as if we are afraid of pure black. Anyway, I'm sure you have been asked this a thousand times before but if you ever consider writing the ultimate PS B&W "how to" I'd really be interested.

That said I do realise that that is just a small part of the process and seeing and realising ( no z's now you're here ) in the finish what you see is near to the whole bit. Oh yeah, there is also a glossy feel which is weird on a monitor.

Welcome to Ireland and I hope you are happy here. Strange country but not bad once you get used to it.

Ruu_Old

Some fantastic work, welcome to boards. Dont be afraid to post here, come back now ya hear

Ravage1616

Wow some very nice photos! Welcome to boards!

Fajitas!

Another welcome from myself, excellent work.

elven

Don't be shy, get stuck in and throw out a few comments. And also spread your knowledge and inspiration about a good bit too.

It's not often someone shows up with a fantastic collection of pictures like that, looking forward to seeing your new stuff as it appears

Greysoul

Valentia wrote:

Sorry I hed to leave and missed the follow up. I hope you really don't mind but it's rare to see such class work. What gets me about your photographs is that it is really black and white. Of course there is grey (irish spelling) but when I, and most people I know, mess with PS it is grey. It's as if we are afraid of pure black.

I've been the same way for most of my career. (And I prefer that spelling myself.) It took me a long time to get this comfortable with extreme contrast and reduction, but it's a mode that feels more "right" for me than anything I'd done before - actually, in large part I can credit that to moving here to Ireland a few months ago. I'm a lifelong American and brand new here, but I feel more at home here in Dublin, far more myself, than anywhere else I've lived... and hopefully that's showing in my work, I've been photographing all my life and I think I'm just *finally* getting to where I've wanted to be with it all along. (Gawd, I hope this isn't sounding too silly... I've always found it very difficult to talk about this sort of thing in any meaningful way without sounding pretentious/ridiculous.)

As for tips and stuff, I wouldn't know where to begin in general, I really would end up writing a book and I don't think I have that in me. But I'm always glad to answer specifics.

Anyhow... I don't know if there's a proper Irish way (heh) to respond to this sort of thing, but thank you guys so much for the welcome. I'm really looking forward to whatever photo get-together you guys have, I miss my friends in the states and have been very much hoping to make some friends here.

Valentia

It doesn't sound in the least pretentious.

Just a few basic questions first. Do you shoot digital? Do you shoot in colour?

If so what is your 1st step on the monochrome journey? What I mean is do you just select "monochrome" in PS or do you do it through channels, adjustment layers etc? Now that I've typed this it isn't such a basic question after all.

I don't know, maybe sometime, whenever you have the time, you would take one of your pictures and give us a synopsis of your workflow. That should cover a lot of the stuff thet people might feel like asking.

Great that you feel comfortable here. As I said it can be an odd place but it certainly has something that has disappeared in many other places: soul.

BTW in relation to something you said on your site I have always believed that it is a great planet if it wasn't for the people living on it. Thankfully there are exceptions;-)

Valentia

Greysoul, I've just read the "credit that" link that you gave. Yep I can appreciate what you say. I feel very much that way too. I have been taking "nice" stuff which a lot of people like but there is more in me somewhere. As I said in another thread I love b&w but have shied away from it in PS because my results are crap and not what I want to achieve. I need to get my head around PS but that takes time and unfortunately I rarely have that to give it a right go.

I have to say too that I don't find your Irish stuff bleak. The very opposite, I find it full of life and even humourous at times.

delly

Now thats some good stuff right there. Welcome and well done.

Greysoul

Valentia wrote:

Just a few basic questions first. Do you shoot digital? Do you shoot in colour?

If so what is your 1st step on the monochrome journey? What I mean is do you just select "monochrome" in PS or do you do it through channels, adjustment layers etc? Now that I've typed this it isn't such a basic question after all.

Not really, but what the hell... I've been shooting digital exclusively for several years now (currently w/a Canon 5D). I prefer shooting in colour mainly because I usually have a good idea of how I want the final B&W to look when I take it, and shooting in colour gives me more flexibility in converting to B&W for adjusting channels.

My first and main step is importing into PS's Camera Raw (I always shoot in RAW format). Every photo is different, of course, but usually I make several 16-bit conversions from the RAW file, optimising for different points - i.e. for a portrait, I might tweak it one way to get the eyes looking the way I want, do another for the hair, another for the background etc, then carefully clone-blend them together... often starting from a plain black "canvas" to which I "paint" in the details as I want them, it's my way of keeping myself focused on what's essential in the photo. I almost never add anything to what's there, but I often take a great deal away.

Valentia wrote:

As I said in another thread I love b&w but have shied away from it in PS because my results are crap and not what I want to achieve. I need to get my head around PS but that takes time and unfortunately I rarely have that to give it a right go.

Yeah, PS is a very powerful tool, one that you can spend a lifetime trying to master... gawd knows I don't think I have yet! The blessing and the curse of it is that you can do just about anything with it, a lot of folks equate PS with heavy filtering and the like (I never touch the filter menu myself), but they don't realise that just because you *can* do something doesn't always mean you should... it's better to play a few notes very well than to play many badly.

Valentia wrote:

I have to say too that I don't find your Irish stuff bleak. The very opposite, I find it full of life and even humourous at times.

Thanks so much. If you guys have any tips on great places to shoot, particularly for the more "real Ireland" slice-of-life side of things, I'm all ears... I've barely begun to figure my way around Dublin yet.

pokypoky

Can someone briefly explain to me the benefits of shooting in RAW? Is it just better image quality?

If you want somewhere cool to shoot Greysoul why don't you take a trip on the Dart first and hop on and hop off at places that tickle your fancy...or a trip on the number 13 bus is always interesting...might even get a good deal on a "second hand camera" from the lads at the back smoking weed.

Greysoul

pokypoky wrote:

Can someone briefly explain to me the benefits of shooting in RAW? Is it just better image quality?

A little more than that... RAW is basically the digital negative, the unaltered image straight from the sensor, without the camera applying its own white balance, saturation, contrast etc settings - which means that you can adjust them yourself more flexibly when converting from RAW without really harming the image quality, whereas a JPEG is "fixed" and any adjustments made to them after the fact will degrade the quality more (especially when they're heavily compressed, it doesn't take much to make them a blocky mess).

The downside is that RAW files are much larger and usually slower to work with. So I'd stick with JPEG mode if you're just into straight from the camera shots with little/no tweaking, and RAW if you're into post-processing.

And yeah, I need to work up the courage to ride the Dart and bus by myself, but haven't managed it quite yet. My guy and I are pretty limited in when and where we can go out together, and by myself, aside from being very shy, I don't know my way around yet and I'm not exactly big/intimidating enough to feel safe walking around many areas on my own with a very expensive camera around my neck...

Valentia

Thanks Greysoul. That's enough to keep me going for a few months

Just one quick question. When do you turn the pics to B&W? During the RAW conversion or when you have finished working? And if the latter do you use monochrome or channels? I use Rawshooter mostly for converting.

Thanks for your time and patience.

Can't help you on the Dublin thing. I tend to avoid the place. Can't stand traffic! If you are ever down Trim direction give me a call.

EireRoadUser

Hello GreySoul ,love your work , sorry for the late greeting .

You make black and white so good.

Greysoul

Valentia wrote:

Just one quick question. When do you turn the pics to B&W? During the RAW conversion or when you have finished working? And if the latter do you use monochrome or channels? I use Rawshooter mostly for converting.

During the RAW conversion... I completely desaturate it, then adjust the white balance & colour levels for the desired B&W tone, working on it in PS as 16-bit greyscale.

Thanks again all

Valentia

Thanks Greysoul. I'm looking forward to giving it a lash.

johnny b

hey guys,

shootin on my girlfriends nikon d50 and havin issues with raw files. when i bring em into photoshop they look comletely different colour wise from on the camera, whereas jpegs look more similar.

any ideas.

Greysoul

johnny b wrote:

shootin on my girlfriends nikon d50 and havin issues with raw files. when i bring em into photoshop they look comletely different colour wise from on the camera, whereas jpegs look more similar.

Taking a wild guess here, the camera might be shooting with the white balance set to one thing while PS tries to import it as another... do you have Camera Raw in PS? You should be able to use that (or any other raw converter) to adjust the white balance.

pokypoky

Greysoul wrote:

And yeah, I need to work up the courage to ride the Dart and bus by myself, but haven't managed it quite yet. My guy and I are pretty limited in when and where we can go out together, and by myself, aside from being very shy, I don't know my way around yet and I'm not exactly big/intimidating enough to feel safe walking around many areas on my own with a very expensive camera around my neck...

Thanks for that man, I'm gonna stick to the jpegs for the time being until I become a genius photographer.

Get the dart at about 11 in the morning is my suggestion, its nearly empty and pretty relaxing, I did an entire college photography project once just sitting on the dart at that time taking pictures out the window of random stuff and I got a pretty decent mark too

Fionn

heya
some great work there, havent had time to look at everything but i'll certainly be back to see it all.
it'll be good inspiration for a lot of peeps here i'm thinking

well done

johnny b

Greysoul wrote:

During the RAW conversion... I completely desaturate it, then adjust the white balance & colour levels for the desired B&W tone, working on it in PS as 16-bit greyscale.

i just got raw conversion update for cs2 and wow:eek: . what a joy to use.never been confident with raw before. greysoul-when your saving your images do you revert them back to 8bit or leave them as 16bit tiffs (i presume tiff)

Greysoul

johnny b wrote:

i just got raw conversion update for cs2 and wow:eek: . what a joy to use.never been confident with raw before. greysoul-when your saving your images do you revert them back to 8bit or leave them as 16bit tiffs (i presume tiff)

I save them as 16-bit for unfinished versions, 8-bit for finished (since there's no difference to the naked eye, and I don't need the extra range by then). And yeah, Camera Raw's been the best thing to come along for my working process in ages.

Thanks so much guys