attempt at B&W landscape

[mokenny]

Tried my hand at converting this landscape from color to B&W using Silver effex pro.
Will appreciate comments as to how to improve the picture and post digital processing.

Thanks

Mo Kenny

[stamper]

The processing looks too flat. Was this a preset? If so then a preset can be tweaked. The highlights on the posts could be lightened to give some more contrast and also the clouds could lightened.

[Chris Calohan]

I too used SEP2 but I did it in several layers changing contrast and tonal ranges in each layer. That's the fun of working with SEP.

[mokenny]

It looks like you have increased the contrast/ tone and brightness.  I guess I still have a lot of learning to do regarding post digital work.
Another lighter version is posted. Could you enlighten me as to how you made the clouds stand out ?

Mo Kenny

[Chris Calohan]

I believe I over exposed one layer and under exposed the next, painting out on a mask where I wanted the most contrast change. One thing to note is you can accomplish a lot of this conversion in the color version by working in the B&W adjustment mode, pushing and pulling the color sliders to suit. Flatten the original then take it into SEP, if needed. If you go to SEP, use it as a layer and mask again, keeping what areas you want more or less contrasty and again, painting out that which you don't like.