Black & White photography

Hey people thought i'd try and strike up an disscusion....

I've seen many diff ways to turn coloured photo's into great black and white one's. Which way do you prefer and how do you go about it...

Ste

I usually just desaturate an image - but there are plug-ins around that do more than just that

I personally create several layers. Gradient Map for B&W, Levels and Brightness/Contrast - and fiddle about until I'm happy with it!

xx

I tend to look at the colour shot - do a quick grayscale version as a new layer then use that as a guide to see where the conversion could do with improvements.

I then use selective colours and adjust them (darken blues and lighten greens for example) so you get contrast between 'colours' which would otherwise look too similar in the b&w conversion.

I will also dodge and burn areas and almost certainly up the contrast more than I would for a colour shot.

Once converted to b&w I would probably do some more dodging and burning and sharpen to suit at the end.

I desaturate too! Its simple that way lol

Shoot in B&W

This is where the good old debate comes in!

I never shoot in B&W - because I may want the photo in colour later. Also - I was told by one of the pros in the camera club that it's not wise, as the tones etc *in* camera, are not as good as if you convert in a program afterwards. Not sure if that's the case for all cameras, but so far, from the odd time I *have* shot in black and white, I've found it true.

xx

Same here! Although I have converted a few too.

The theory (and one I kind of agree with) is that if you shoot in B&W the camera only sees shades of grey. If the bue sky is the same shade as the green grass then the resulting picture has the sky looking the same as the grass.

Shot in colour - you can adjust one of the colours and darken it so the resulting conversion has the contrast you want.

That's a very simplistic example.

You could argue that if you're wanting to produce b&w images then you should really be photographing scenes with lots of contrast rather than nice colours anyway.

Years ago I had a little eye piece thing that you just held and looked through. It turned the world into b&w and was a great way of seing what sort of contrast you would get.

I've just downloaded a trial version of Adobe Lightbox, and that has a couple of B&W settings, I've used that a couple of times and the results are fantastic... The drawback is the £230 quid they want for the full program, so I guess when the trial runs out I'll need a better cheaper solution