PROJECT #2: Black & White - The Forgotten

The Forgotten
Black and White Project

I was driving home from helping out my in-laws when I saw this barn off of Route 302. The sky was ominous, and the barn looks so tragically forgotten. I knew I wanted to use it for my B&W project, and I wanted the barn to be a muted color scheme.

My camera was set to automatic landscape mode (WB: AUTO, APERATURE: F10, SHUTTER SPEED 1/320 ISO: 200). This picture was taken mid-day, with natural overcast lighting (the sun was obscured behind clouds to the left of me.) 

In Photoshop I enhanced the vibrance and the exposure the image. I enhanced the contrast slightly. Using the magnetic lasso I inverted the selection, isolating the landscape from the barn. I made the image black and white (Reds: 97, Yellows, 28, Greens: 61, Cyans -39, Blues: -14, Magenta 80). I created a layer mask of the barn, and decreased the sautation to -40, which gives the barn a muted, almost monochromatic feel. I then had to retouch the leaves of the tree that were in the foreground of the barn, and using several layer masks was able to turn all of those to black and white, giving the image a more complete feel.

The cloud cover gives the image an ominous tone. I believe the strongest part of the image are the clouds, especially since they are in a black and white scheme. The are multi-tonal. The weakest part of the image is the tree in front of the barn... I wish I could have given it the same effect as the sky. I really enjoyed this assignment, it allowed for me to learn how powerful a monochromatic picture can be. I wish I could have muted the barn more. ... so it was just barely colored.