Bring your black and White photos to life!

Who doesn't love black and white photos?Any,and most photos look fabulous in black and white - unless of course there are prominent colours that make up the photo .

I'm a make up as I go along girl until I found myself following the same process while editing andd turning some of my photos into monochromes.

In a box view they are : ( I use Photoshop Cs5)

a) A Slight adjustment of exposure (if needed).

b)A slight adjustment of gamma from the Image>Adjustments>Exposure box in Photoshop Cs5.

c) Convert to black and white Image>Adjustments>Black and white.

d)A slight adjustment in Levels,again from the same menu.(Not so much that you cloud all the details and black everything out)

e) A Radial gradient of white(center) and light gray (blending out) on a separate layer set to Hue or Soft Light.

f) Crop (if needed).

Here are two which turned out satisfactory,I believe

I prefer shooting in colour instead of directly in monochrome,so that I can have the best of both worlds,like so :

What are some of your routine editing processes? Share share!

Do you use Photoshop Actions/Light room presets? Or do you make up your own?

This post was also posted by me on iblog4.me.

Friday Faves v2.

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!- By Kristen.I'll pay you if you can get over the coolness/uniqueness/radness!

21st  Century white girl problems - The Tsaritsa a.k.a. Alexandra.This made me chuckle and I'm linking up soon-except it's going to be First World problems in a Third World.Weird kind of subversion,yo!

Solitude - by Vic.I totally nodded along.Also-how gorgeous is that photo!?

Which lens should I choose?- By Kevin and Amanda. This was an amazingly helpful read for a photography amateur like me.I have been meaning to buy a 50mm prime for a while now and am yet to put my dad's old macro lens to better use than early this year.

Shoot and Edit:Bokehs in Photoshop: A guest post by Mira Crisp on Ashley Sisk's blog. Are you a huge bokeh fan like me?Real ones are always the best, but check out this tutorial on how to create some cool ones in Photoshop!

Hope you enjoyed my this week's picks!

Do you have a favourite post of the week?Leave the link in the comments section.Want to feature your faves of the week?Email me at swetablogs{AT}gmail{DOT}com.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday:Photoshop and Venom

I haven't done photo manips in a while even though I used to live Photoshop7(I have long since upgraded,don't worry)  and  had about every bizarre tutorial around the web stored in my dad's computer(I didn't have one back then). .As I said it's been a while and I'm kinda rusty-but,I went ahead and did it anyway.This is a rare opportunity to laugh at my expense-grab it and wiggle it around like flubber,thank you very much. *wink*

There you go,Sweta-Cullenified.Have some wicked photo manips hiding up your sleeve?Go show off on FTLOB's weekly challenge ^_^