Some time ago I came across a guy called Ian Barber on the web, I made contact with him asking a question on editing my black and white images. I asked him his opinions on my work in black and white, he told me that for him, my images were rather contrasty, he recommended I look at some of his work to see the different tones you can achieve when edited correctly, up to then I had mainly used photoshop and Silver Efex Pro, id just applied one or two of the filters from their many to choose from, I thought they looked very nice, but after listening to Ian, then being shown how he processes his black and white images, I was much wiser.
I have tried to copy his style, but you can only do so much and no matter how long you try, you won’t achieve the standard he does because we all see our images differently. His understanding of the tones in black and white to my mind, are second to none. Ian is colour blind so he usually sticks to the grayscale mode but he also produces some amazing colour work too.
You can view his work here….https://www.ianbarberphotography.co.uk/