Tell me should it be color or black and white?

Today I had a few hours to myself so I decided to take a detour to Tainter Hollow after dropping off my recyclables at the Town Shop.

I didn't even make it a mile from home and it began to rain.  I wasn't really worried, I had gone photo hunting before during weather that would alternate between down pours and sunshine.

I looked ahead on the gravel road, a tractor had recently come out of a field and left a mud trail.  I slowed and then stopped.  
Serendipity.
The sun broke out in a warm color.  And I saw this:

The first shot was taken with my elderly Olympus E-420 and a long lens.
The second was taken with my Nikon with the 18-55mm kit lens.

I envisioned both of these shots in black and white.
And so...

Just as I came around the corner I looked up at the clouds again and realized that this was going to be one of those days, when the weather changed rapidly.

I don't normally like telephone poles or electric lines in my photos but again Serendipity hit.  They would lead nicely from my perspective.
And again, I thought this sky would look fantastic in black and white.

The difference here is incredible.  I was able to add a filter that turned the blues to nearly black.
Now the poles had a reason to pull the earth and sky together.

I finally pulled into the small parking area at Tainter Hollow and did some exploring.

Tainter Creek is a rather nice little trout stream and I enjoy seeing the trout flit back and forth and then hide in the shadowed places.

Oh yes, I tried this out in black and white also.

I think it is amazing the difference in tonal value that black and white processing can make in a photo.

I found many more things while exploring today, but I'll just leave with with a parting color shot of one of my favorite spots to park and go walking with my camera.

I had more adventures when I explored Tainter Hollow, Tainter East, Tainter West, and Tainter Rd.
You could say that all those roads named Tainter are confusing.

Not to me, I've been exploring them for years.

Photo processing used, Topaz Detail and Topaz BW Effects 2.  Photos shot in RAW format and processed in AfterShotPro2 by Corel.
Just as a side note, I like the products and dislike renting from Adobe.

Topaz Products Combining the Plug - Ins

I've become a fan of mixing different plug ins and experimenting with not only those plug ins...of which Topaz is my favorite, but of also blending textures over the photos.

Here is the original photo:

Here I used the original and copied it.
Next I used Topaz Adjust to my own liking.
I copied that layer and made a layer with Topaz Detail.
Lastly I copied the Detail Layer and use Topaz Simplify.

I experimented with the opacity on each layer trying to find a good fit.

So then I entered layer masks...

I liked how the image was shaping up.  I took the Simplify layer and ran it through Topaz Clean.
However, I did not like how that came out.  So I hit the undo button and stuck with the Simplify layer, which I then masked much like the layer shows in the above sample.

[I change my mind and experiment A LOT when working with photos.]  If I don't copy down what I have done, I don't usually recall my work flow at all.

This final image was with the Simplified Layer on top, I used a mask to erase out the portions that I did not want yet to keep the bright colors and the playground equipment nice and clean looking.  This was the focal point of my image.

For fun here are a few images that I've used Textures on.  I'll be doing a blog on that very soon, as I am trying to figure out how to make great textures myself to use on photos.

 And...