Mean, Moody and Mono

Sometimes you don’t get that perfect light – the colours are missing and you’re tempted to get back in the car and drive home. 

But so long as you’ve got a little definition in the sky and it’s not pouring down, then stick around – get some shots with the intention of going “black and white” in processing. 

I usually switch the camera to Monochrome when shooting – just so the preview on camera looks black and white – remember that the RAW file always contains colour info anyway, so you don’t lose anything. 

The Base Photo

As you can see from this unedited shot – it wasn’t the most inspiring of days in Yorkshire, but there was sky definition – so I stuck around and took 63 photos of the area. 

This is 2 of them stitched together. 

 

After about 7 minutes in LIGHTROOM… 

 

The basic steps are

1. Choose a colour profile – a new feature in LIGHTROOM 
2. Tweak the Basic Settings – take time
3. Add a split tone to cool it down a bit
4. Sharpen
5. Vignette
6. Grad Tool – including the new Luminosity slider 
7. Brush Tool
8. Crop

 

Rather than typing the details, here’s a video which explains it all – every step! 

The Video