Exercise: Strength of interpretation.

Outline: Use two photos that you think would best suit the following adjustments:

• A strong increase in contrast that will include clipping (loss of detail) in at least the shadow areas.
• Low key or high key treatment, in which the entire brightness range is shifted down or up the scale.

Create these effects, one for each image, but in two versions - in colour and in black and white.

I am using two different styles of images for this exercise. I wanted to use one with natural vivid colour and also one with limited colour to explore the extremes of both types of image.

My first image I will be using is the one below:

This was taken on a lovely sunny day and is full of green and blue tones.

By increasing the contrast and making a definite S curve, the tones in the image have become more defined. The image overall is darker and the shadows have been increased making the tones of the greens and blues appear to have more of a range of colour.

This image shows the effect of shifting the values of the levels down the scale, fitting into approximately half the range than the original. The shadows have been lightened and therefore more detail is seen but we have now lost a lot of detail in the highlighted areas for example the sky and the reflections in the water.

Converting the image to black and white and increasing the contrast, again with an S curve, again makes the image darker but I feel that we are starting to lose data in the some of the shaded areas which is more noticeable than in the colour version. The different tones of colour can be differentiated through the tones of the black and white But I prefer the colour version of this effect.

Again in black and white, this is the image once the values have been shifted down the scale. The tones corresponding to the different shades of colour have been lost as has a lot of detail in the highlighted areas. It reminds me of snow, as though the image was taken in the middle of winter. However, the texture of the scene is more defined with a lot more subject detail showing through than in the other versions.

To repeat this exercise I will be using this original image:

This image is a lot 'flatter' with less tones and a dominant blue colouring with less texture. It is completely different to the previous image and it will be interesting to see what these effects have on this image.

The increase in contrast works wonders on the colour in this image.We can now really see the difference between the deep blue sea and the bright blue sky. But the shadowed area in the foreground of the image has been completely lost in a mound of black, so much so that we cant see any detail at all. The same with the sun and reflection on the water. As the image would already have had a large highlight clipping warning in the first place, increasing the contrast would have increased this and also increased the shadow warning too.

By increasing the brightness, shifting the values down the scale, a good chunk of the image has been washed out and all detail lost. We can now see a bit of colour and definite detail in the bushes in the foreground however most of the sky , the sun and the reflection in the water has all fused into a big patch of white with no detail to be seen.

This black and white conversion with the increased contrast is definitely one of my favourites. Although we still have the issue of losing data in the highlights and shadows, I feel that we also gain detailing in this version as well. The sea has more texture and the sky appears to have more tones. This effect makes the image look a bit more fierce than the original and I like it.

Finally we have the image with increased brightness and it's true to form. As with the colour version, a big chunk of detail, including the main subject of this image has been lost in the highlights but the brightness has increased some detail in the water and the sand bank to the right of the image. We also get more detail in the bushes but none of that matters if the subject has been lost in a big sea of white.




Conclusion:
This exercise explored the extremes of interpreting the tonal range of the image. Each version of both sets of photographs has pros and cons and it's all down to personal interpretation. As you can tell by now, I like things to look slightly different, especially darker and more fierce when it comes to photographing the sky so this has been an excellent exercise for me in that respect. Pushing the values to the limits of their scales can produce completely different outcomes. Going back a few exercises to interpretive processing, it will be interesting to re process my 'fierce sky' image using these techniques and to see if the outcome would be any different.