Sea of Devotion II © Julia Anna Gospodarou – Athens Porto Rafti

Black and White Processing Without Selections in Landscape Photography

Working without selections or with just a few, seems to be counter-intuitive if you consider the elaborate way I process my images generally but in this image I experimented with it to see how far I can go.

The conclusion is that, even if not having accurate selections to control the image in depth, I still had a certain level of control by using the other tools in a smart way. This kind of processing is more suited for landscape photography than for architecture, because in landscape photography one can be more permissive with outline than in architecture photography.

A very good tool I have used and I am using when I can is the “Edge Aware” function in Topaz Labs B&W Effects which is a tool that allows you to paint an effect inside an outline without spilling it outside the outline. The tool understands the edges and keeps the effect you apply inside the border. This is one of the best tools in Topaz Labs B&W Effects and one of my most used.

About the image

Shot in the Attica Peninsula, a few days ago, while scouting for my next private workshop in Athens, I tried on Sea of Devotion II a new way of processing, a black and white processing without selections.
If you want to book a private workshop with me, you can do it here: Private workshops & Mentoring Courses with Julia Anna Gospodarou.
I would be happy to teach you everything I know about black and white fine art and take you to the best locations in wonderful Athens or anywhere else in the world.

I was born a traveler and I was born an artist. You can trust me 100%, this is what  love to do most: share my knowledge and show others the best places for photography in the world.

I shot this image with Formatt-Hitech Firecrest 16 IRND filter, my favorite filter in my bag. No need to say, this is the best ND filter you can shoot with. If you are an architectural or landscape photographer you need this filter just as much as you need your wide angle lens.

Experimenting Black and White Processing Without Selections

One interesting piece of trivia. I edited this image almost without making any selection, just by “drawing” it – using layer blend modes, gradients, D&B and luminosity masks. I’ll show you how soon.

Fine Art Photowalk announcement

London Photowalk Update – FREE  Event – Sunday February 15th – 11am – London City Hall:
I’ll be in London for a few days next week to film a series of lectures on black and white Fine Art photography for a well-known UK photography school where I will be teaching soon and I would like to meet as many London photographers as I can while I’m there.

If you are in London on Sunday February 15th and want to meet me, I’ll organize a casual FREE photowalk around the City of London where I will share tips for black and white, long exposure and architectural/urban photography.

Meeting at 11am in front of London City Hall building by Norman Foster – on the riverside, close to the Tower Bridge.

I’ll be back with details and a formal announcement over the next few days.

Back to my image now.

PROCESSING

TECHNICAL DATA

Long exposure image shot at sunset in low light.
– Camera settings: 764.0 sec.(~13 min.) @ f/4.5, ISO 100
– Neutral Density Filters: 16 stops Formatt Hitech  Firecrest 16 stops IRND Filter  – circular version.
– Shot with Canon 5D MK3 & Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
– T/S settings – no tilt, no shift

PROCESSING SOFTWARE

– LR5, PS CC , Topaz B&W Effects  (Topaz Labs B&W Effects 2 Full Review) +Topaz DeNoise + Topaz Detail , NIK Silver Efex Pro 2

RAW Version of the image

Here is a RAW version of the image, before processing.

Sea of Devotion II © Julia Anna Gospodarou – RAW Version

Straight conversion to black and white

And here is a straight conversion to black and white, to see the difference processing with PhtD (Photography Drawing) can make. More about Photography Drawing and about my entire black and white fine art philosophy and processing in the book From Basics to fine Art that I wrote together with Joel Tjintjelaar.

Sea of Devotion II © Julia Anna Gospodarou – Straightforward black and white Conversion

Topaz Labs 15% Discount for my students and followers

Topaz Labs  was so kind to not only feature my work so many times and participate in my workshops, but they also gave me a discount code for my students and followers who are reading this blog and want to use the best software available in their post-processing work. You can use my special code “juliaannagospodarou”  to get  15% discount for any of the Topaz plugins, separately or the whole collection. You can use the code by ordering at this link. Enjoy!

FURTHER STUDY RESOURCES – FINE ART BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY, ARCHITECTURE, LONG EXPOSURE

You can find more tutorials on fine art black and white photography, (en)Visionography, long exposure photography and architectural photography in my extensive collection of photography tutorials. To receive my future tutorials directly via email you can subscribe to my website.
More about how to create fine art photography, from vision till processing and the final image you can read in my book From Basics to Fine Art – Black and White Photography, with co-author Joel Tjintjelaar, and in my video tutorial Long Exposure, Architecture, Fine Art Photography – Creating (en)Visionography a hands-on tutorial accompanied by an eBook presenting my processing workflow, or attend one of my workshops.

Julia Anna Gospodarou – (en)Visionographer

Julia Anna Gospodarou is an internationally acclaimed photographer, author and educator, teaching workshops and lecturing around the world. Founder of (en)Visionography™ and Photography Drawing™, co-author of the best-selling book From Basics to Fine Art, with high distinctions in the most important photography competitions worldwide, published internationally in numerous books and magazines, Julia is passionate about art and striving to spread it into the world.