Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Thanks Chris - yes, I think yours actually gets closer to the tones of the walls, which are weathered to a much darker tone than the original granite. It does go to show how controlling for details influences results, but I was concentrating on the 25 pounder guns and how the highlight control perfectly captured the reflectivity of the matt paint on them, so didn't want to take their tones down. This enthusiasm I entirely trace to a grandfather in the Royal Artillery!
Digression aside, I think this technique is absolutely ideal for numerous things I want to photograph here and all I know want for this one is some more interesting sky, and some summer sidelighting to pick out more details. Thanks for sharing!
Charles,
I'm glad you found it useful. What you would do in cases like yours where tonal adjustments needed to make the the overall photo look good end up making some part of the photo, like the artillery piece in your photo, is to dodge or burn the area that ends up too dark or too light.
The best way to do that is with curves adjustment layers. Here's a tutorial I wrote a couple yrs ago on how to do that.
https://crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/dodge-burn.php
I think the next thing I post will be a tutorial on what, exactly, I do to increase tonal separation in black and white scans. I'll try to have that done in a few days.