I cut my teeth in the photography world breathing in developer, fixer and god knows what other harmful chemicals while living life in the glaring light of a dull red light of a black and white darkroom. I could spend hours upon hours in my home made darkroom (my mum’s laundry) developing and printing and trying to get that black and white print to look just the way I imagined it.

These days the chemicals are gone and trying to replicate that awesome black and white print in pixels is sometimes a never ending challenge. Since the dawn of the digital darkroom I’ve constantly been on the look out for a way to do what I used to in the darkroom. Not a Photoshop wiz by a long stretch I tend to keep a lookout for the best ways to acheive certain results. I’ve never been overly happy with some of the tutorials and examples of some Photoshop people out there until now. I happened across a tutorial by fellow photo friend Erin on her blog which looked to be the goods as far as my taste in B&W imagery was concerned. I worked through her instructions and ended up with the above image of my daughter Lana.

This little technique is definitely going in the bag of tricks. Thanks Erin!