Ten Fine Art Photographs in Ten Days with the B&W Artisan Pro X Panel

Actually, it was more like 3 weeks, but I tried to process each image start to finish within a single day. My goal was to improve my proficiency using the B&W Artisan Pro panel so that I would not be afraid to use it rather than simply defaulting to Lightroom out of comfort. Although I didn’t start with the expectation that any of these would become “portfolio quality” images, I actually discovered a few hidden gems that will become part of my black and white Fine Art portfolio.

I have used the B&W Artisan Pro panel to successfully process several of my black and white images, and I’ve never failed to produce a successful result when I felt than a particular image could not be realized using only Lightroom. However, I’ve usually needed to spend a few hours re-watching Joel’s tutorials to refresh my workflow knowledge before getting started and also had a few false starts before coming away with the final processed photo. With this intense exercise, I’m hoping to develop a more complete understanding of the workflow so that I intuitively know which tools to employ for a given image and improve

I started with the goal of processing 10 images, but exactly which 10 images was not decided until I started working on the final photo. I started with an iPhone image captured out the passenger window at 65 mph, but I thought the sky looked interesting. Eventually, I ended up with a collection that includes five color images, five infrared images, and two iPhone photos (captured as DNG raw files using the Lightroom camera app).

Out of the ten, four had been previously processed as black and white photos using Lightroom, Photoshop, or Silver Efex Pro. The other six include two new iPhone images captured within the last month and four other photos that I had either overlooked previously or knew that they would require more than Lightroom to develop.

In this post, I’m presenting the collection of final images and some thoughts on what I have learned through this project. I am presenting the images in the order they were processed to give a sense of the how my skills improved as I progressed through the collection.

I’m planning a couple of subsequent posts to show the comparisons to the previously processed images and what I think has been improved (or not) through the Artisan Pro workflow, and another post presenting side-by-side comparisons of the raw photos before and after processing with Artisan Pro and my thoughts on how to best prepare raw images for processing.

1., East Spanish Peak, December 2023

Of course, this photo was never going to be a portfolio candidate, but I thought it would be a good image to start with because of the simple composition and interesting light and clouds in the sky. As with most of the images in this collection, I only needed to create a single hard mask of the sky/foreground to use the Artisan Pro workflow.

2. Farmhouse, Texas Panhandle, March 2019

The farmhouse photo is to me the most disappointing image in the project. This image was one of the first photos I captured with an infrared camera, and one that I had previously invested a lot of time into learning new black and white processing skills in Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro. I expected to be able to produce a better result using Artisan Pro, but my previous Photoshop edit is much better.

3. Highway 12 and West Spanish Peak, August 2019

This photo of storm clouds surrounding the West Spanish Peak is the most unexpected image in the collection. I had never attempted to process this photo previously because the mountain was obscured in shadow, but with the Artisan Pro panel, I was able to significantly lighten the mountain while at the same time enhancing the contrast between the mountain and sky. I also love the dreamy infrared look of the foreground with the highway curving through the fields and trees, and the sky is full of drama.

4. Natural Arch near Cuchara, Colorado, August 2019

This image was captured in 2019 on the same outing as the previous photo of the West Spanish Peak (and number 9 also, not to menton this photo). I always felt that I had captured some interesting images on that day, but I was never quite sure what to do with them, and my previous attempts to create something from the raw images were not inspiring.

This image is a focal length blend of two photos of this scene. In the original wide angle photo, the arch is too far away from the camera and loses visual impact, while the road and foreground are missing from the zoomed in photo. Combining these photos creates a composition that better reflects the incredible natural beauty of this location (before it was ruined by the new owner of the lot).

5. Snowy Morning at Ojo Caliente, New Mexico, January 2024

This image is the second iPhone photo that I selected for this project, and the only photo that did not require any hard masks to be created. As I was walking over to get some coffee, the sunlight broke over the horizon and created some amazing highlights and shadows, and I was able to snap this photo before the worker finished clearing off the walkway with a snowplow. The Artisan Pro panel allowed me to separate the snow covered trees from the sky in the background and also to enhance the separation of the tree from the building.

6. Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, October 2018

This photo of the dune is one that I had processed in black and white only a few months ago using Lightroom. I actually thought it had turned out pretty good until I reworked the photo with Artisan Pro. The mountains in the Lightroom version are much brighter, similar to the closest part of the dune; allowing the mountains to stay dark, but without too much contrast, keeps the visual weight on the dune in the foreground and completely changes the feel of this image.

Unlike most images in this series, this one required the creation of hard masks for the light and dark sides of the dune in addition to the sky/ground masks. However, these were easily created using the Object Selection tool.

7. Ojo Caliente, New Mexico, March 2019

Maybe I expect too much from this image, but this is my third attempt to process this scene, and I’m still not completely satisfied. But I will say this version is my best attempt thus far. I think this photo has all the elements to become a standout fine art photograph-an interesting natural subject with the natural layers of the formation enhanced by indirect fading sunlight (and direct light on the shrubs at the top) and a fantastic sky darkened by the infrared filter with some ethereal wispy high clouds. Reflecting on this attempt, I think the sky is perfect but I overdid the contrast on the hillside.

8. Slot at Palo Duro Canyon, December 2017

The slot canyon photo is one that I’ve wanted to render in black and white for a long time (I actually captured some photos on 6×6 film at the same time). The Lightroom black and white edit is not bad, but it lacks dimension and depth. Whereas in this version I feel like I am peering down a long passage, my Lightroom edit feels like I am looking into a small room and the bright back wall is only a few feet away.

This image required by far the most hard selections (but no sky mask) so that each part of the canyon wall could be edited individually; fortunately, Photoshop’s Object Selection tool took care of most of the hard work in creating those.

9. West Spanish Peak, August 2019

This photo is the third infrared image I selected for this exercise from that same day in August 2019 which made me consider why I am so drawn to this set of images. I think the answer is found in this image. I like this photo and this was my all-time favorite view of the West Spanish Peak, so I really wanted to make this image work. But in Lightroom, I could not.

I decided to try a different technique here using something I’ve seen in several of Joel’s tutorials where he creates a bright light in the sky behind the main subject. Although the mountain is fairly bright, the sky behind it is brighter with the clouds creating a natural vignette for the image. I think it works.

10. Fog Approaching Mount Capulin, New Mexico, October 2022

I have to admit, this photo was a real sleeper for me. Seeing this phenomena is real life was almost indescribable. What was light rain and drizzle in the Texas Panhandle turned into dense fog as I traveled across norther New Mexico until I suddenly drove out into blue skies near Capulin. I pulled off the highway the first chance I had and ran over to the fence to capture this scene. Unfortunately, seeing the images on the computer was disappointing. However, one of my good friends saw this image a few months ago and commented on how phenomenal it was and I knew I needed to figure it out.

After initially processing this photo in Artisan Pro for this project, I felt like I was finally seeing what it could become but knew that it still needed some work. In particular, the bright clouds above and to the right of the mountain were “blooming.” I really struggled with effectively reigning in those highlights and re-worked the sky two or three times to get it right.

Bonus: Color Version

As much as I like the black and white version, the original color version of this photo is compelling. The Artisan Pro workflow works best for black and white images but can be used to create fine art color images by adding the original color back in at the end using the Color blend mode. Artisan Pro X also includes several cinematic color grades based on Hollywood movies that are specifically intended for use with color images. I tried a few and was really astounded when I saw this one from the movie Togo.

What is interesting is that this color version is based off my original black and white edit with the blooming highlights (which did have to be tamed down in Lightroom). But the color grade dod not work at all for the revised black and white version of the image. The colors are tied to specific tonal ranges, so a minor change can cause a drastic change in the applied color grade. In this case, when applied to the revised image, I was getting some horrendous green in the sky rather than the more neutral tones in this version.