Three Generations of Fishermen
16 February 2014 -- 47/365
Norton, Massachusetts
My Sunday Brunch Meetup Group went to the Chateau in Norton for brunch today. Winnecunnet Pond is directly behind the restaurant and I noticed a bunch of folks out on the pond ice fishing. After brunch I took a walk out onto the pond for some photos. This trio is a grandfather, father, son combination that is on the ice every Saturday and Sunday as long as the ice is thick enough to safely fish. (The ice was a foot thick today.) They had twenty holes bored into the ice, and were constantly rotating between them to keep the hole clear. That's what you see them doing in this photo. It was a light day for them today, they said. They had only caught 4 bass and no pickerel. Still, it was a nice day out on the pond.
Post processing started with a neutral greyscale photo in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, and boost black. A levels adjustment was added in PSE.
@jyokota Thanks, Junko! They were definitely enthusiastic. To answer your question, I haven't used Silver Efex, but from what I understand it's an excellent b&w conversion utility. As long as it allows you to subtly adjust the individual color channels, and allows you to fine tune contrast at the extremes and in the midtones, then I'd stick with it.
How is Topaz B&W FX different from Silver Efex, which is what I have been using as a plug-in for Aperture.