The Story Behind the Photo:
November 2021: Monochrome Portraits
by Kathy Conzelman
This image of my grand-niece and nephew was taken in the backyard in open shade with a Sony ARIV using a Tamron 28-75mm lens. The settings were 75mm at f3.5, 1/200th sec ISO 125. I originally post-processed the Raw file in Lightroom. Because it was a little underexposed, I increased the exposure, and did some basic adjustments before using Lightroom to convert the image to monochrome.
I scrolled through all the presets, but none had the look I wanted, so I went with Silver Effects Pro software instead. I exported the color TIF file into Silver Effects Pro 2 from Lightroom. It was automatically converted to a basic monochrome image upon opening.
I tried a number of presets until I came across Antique Plate II which had the look I was going for. Next, I tried different film types and found I liked KODAK ISO32 Panatomic X the best. I made some local adjustments for highlights, detail, and grain, and then adjusted the vignette to be less severe. I exported the TIF file back into Lightroom to make some final adjustments to the highlights, contrast and sharpening, especially around the eyes. I noted that the vignette had lightened the hair in the bottom and top of the frame a bit too much and some of the texture was lost. Using a selective brush, I darkened those areas a bit and added a little texture. Finally, I used the spot removal brush to clone out a few of the stray strands of hair on the faces that were the most distracting to me. I left most of them, as for me they added to the relaxed look of the image.