When I first started out on this photo I had a pretty good idea of the selections I was going to need to make. But how many is to much? Some photo’s the selections are minimal. Portraits…1 (The person). Cars can be from 3 to about 10. Architecture it is up for grabs. I have done as few as 10, I have done as many as 30 or more. Each selection adds to the size of the photo you are trying to save. Some photo’s get to 2GB’s which means your system can run real slow with saving, opening and making adjustments with Silver Efex, Topaz and such. In order to create the vision you are going for there is only one number that counts when making selections…whatever it takes. Nothing less than the vision and then perfecting the shot will do. Every aspect of the photo is taken into consideration. You don’t want to short cut the quality. For black and white, shades of gray and contrasts of objects, defining objects all need to be defined for your image to have the depth and quality you want it to have. Shading and glossing over areas, Combining grays with in objects, non defining to give no depth out of laziness, using Silver Efex Pro 2 control points (and I am a huge fan of Silver Efex Pro) is short cutting the post processing and will yield you half results and nothing worthy of printing or showing. For the above photo, here are the selections I made, count them for yourself: Sky, upper railing, Dome only, Dome center with light, middle white railing, Glass below middle railing, mid metal beam, Ladder, mid section roof, lower metal frame, under metal frame, under sheeting only, left lamp post, right lamp post, doors, small building roof on left, small building on right, middle beams, foreground cement, small pillars in foreground, trash cans in foreground, grass pads in foreground, Lights on lamps, middle metal framing on dome. Could we say this is over kill? Maybe, but for me this is what it takes to look at every aspect of your photo and adjusting your photo to your vision. In closing, don’t be afraid to make your selections as necessary. You may start out with the easy ones (Sky, buildings, each separate building, etc…) but from there the image will define itself and where shadings need to be made and then you will make the selections necessary to complete the image with in your vision without short cutting the process. Once your image is realized remember to go over and remove rough edges and halos around objects with those selections you made. But that processing is for another post.
