Recommendation on Black & White Photography

[EJohnE]

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Have you ever tried setting the digital camera to shoot in monochrome mode only - not in raw or any colour mode?

 

"Seeing" in b/w is not the same as visualising a colour result. The belt and braces approach of shooting in raw, and converting to mono, just in case I might need a colour print is almost cowardly or at least very insecure in my opinion. Perhaps if one has enough vanity to think of enlarging to 20 inch by 30 inch, a raw conversion may be better than a jpep b/w original. For ordinary A4/A3 prints, the jpegs are usually fine. My old Olympus E-300 could shoot mono tiffs which was better.

 

Have a go!

 

John.

[stunsworth]

The belt and braces approach of shooting in raw, and converting to mono, just in case I might need a colour print is almost cowardly or at least very insecure in my opinion

 

In which case there are a huge number of insecure cowards out there - some of them producing excellent b&w work. Most of what I shoot with my M8 ends up as b&w, and I have to say I feel no insecurity about doing shooting the original in DNG what so ever.

[pop]

The belt and braces approach of shooting in raw, and converting to mono, just in case I might need a colour print is almost cowardly or at least very insecure in my opinion. ... For ordinary A4/A3 prints, the jpegs are usually fine.

 

Some people have found out that the color depth is larger when recording the camera's data in the raw format. It's not about insecurity but about obtaining the best result possible with your equipment. Reducing yourself to a color depth of 8 bits is ridiculous, given that the sensors have so little latitude in exposure.

[EJohnE]

Alright. A silly word to use. However, I can't take seriously that EVERYONE who converts to b/w thinks that his or her picture is of superb quality. I bought my first camera (VP Kodak) in 1946, and consider that I have taken three photographs of great quality of content in the intervening time. Of course I no longer have either the negs nor prints of them. I fell into professional photography for a time, and consider myself to be a competent hack who only once failed to bring back what the editor required.

 

I feel some people are a bit precious regarding their "art". Surely few actually print b/w or colour from 35mm or smaller formats at great enlargement sizes. With film, whenever more than 12" x 16" was required, I used a larger format. Bigger is often better, especially for static subjects.

 

There is a difference between converted from raw compared with 8 bit b/w jpegs. It is negligible (? spelling) up to A3, and a lot easier and quicker..

 

Bone idle, John.

[Jeff S]

I bought my first camera (VP Kodak) in 1946, and consider that I have taken three photographs of great quality of content in the intervening time.

 

An average of one quality photograph every 21 years...now that's a low hit rate and/or a person very hard to please.

 

Jeff

 

PS I generally prefer smaller prints to bigger prints, and content aside, try to maximize every bit of file information in this digital age, in which 50% of the data is gone after the highest 'zone.' To each his own.

[johnwolf]

Back to the OP's question about BW capture, I offer two suggestions:

 

Begin to train yourself to understand color scenes in terms of POTENTIAL gray tones. Once you get to the computer, all those color areas can be rendered in a surprising range of gray tones using color channel adjustments. I'm not advocating heavy manipulation, but part of the beauty of channel adjustments is the ability to separate areas of a picture than might otherwise convert to the same or similar shades of gray. Obviously, shooting DNGs greatly expands your opportunities. Seeing the possibilities up front is a good practice.

 

The second point is obvious but always worth repeating: be conscious of highlights and what you want to see in them. It's so easy to blow out skies and other light areas, which usually ruins a BW print. It's amazing what you can pull out of the shadows of a digital file, but lost highlights are really lost. Whites rich in subtle detail are one of the charms of good BW prints.

 

John

[RoySmith]

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I recommend the book Advanced Digital Black&White Photography by John Beardsworth. It focuses on using the tools in Photoshop for B+W conversions.

 

I do find visualizing in B+W difficult - because by using color "filters" in the conversions, you can make reds (or any color) light medium or dark gray. A simple way to visualize the different colors contribution to a B+W conversion in Photoshop, is to look at the individual channels. Use the channel palate and click on red green or blue (or use Command 2,3 or 4 Mac). This ability to control the conversion is why it is better to shoot in color and then do the conversion afterwards - rather than having the camera convert it one way only. Controlling how each color is converted in software is the equivalent to using color filters with B+W film to make, for example, blue skies darker with a red filter.

Roy

[Jeff S]

I recommend the book Advanced Digital Black&White Photography by John Beardsworth. It focuses on using the tools in Photoshop for B+W conversions.

 

If you read the responses first before posting, you'll see that his question was about books on taking the photograph, not on processing. And, the Beardsworth book was recommended in the third post over a month ago.

 

Jeff

[roguewave]

It's an illusion to think one can see in B&W. There's also a big difference in shooting B&W film and converting RAW/DNG files to b&w. Correct exposure is paramount. In the case of digital it's even more important because it's more brittle than film. Once you have the raw file converted to the DNG, one has an opportunity to output a TIFF file, after making some initial adjustments like WB & contrast. I prefer to have less contrast, as I always want full control to "paint" my image. In Photoshop, the B&W conversion methods allow you to see each tonal range separately in bands, so you can come to understand the various methods to get the "look" you want, selectively.

 

The most important thing to understand is that if you want full control, presets like NIK are a BIG limitation. It takes a real investment in time & practice to develop the skills & know how to make the images "yours", but if you want to portray things as you see them, there's no other path. Short cuts are dead ends.

 

The most important book to read is Dan Margulis' Photoshop LAB color. If you want to understand any of the science under the hood, he is the Guru. Light is made of all colors. Good B&W comes from a deep understanding of color. Another extraordinary volume from Dan is "Professional Photoshop - The Classic Guide to Color Correction" Here Dan gives real world examples of how color correction is central to all image making, including B&W. Making strategic investments in learning about the science of image creation is as important as developing every other set of skills in our wonderful craft. Good Luck.

[Jeff S]

It's an illusion to think one can see in B&W.

 

Of course it's an illusion; otherwise it would be reality. And some do it better than others. And some use a viewing filter to help.

 

And, even if one is successful in 'seeing' (or anticipating correctly) in b/w, it doesn't mean his/her photographs will be successful. Seeing involves a lot more than color, or the lack thereof, and all of it has to do with how one uses his/her 'mind's eye' and translates that to print.

 

Jeff

[RoySmith]

The most important book to read is Dan Margulis' Photoshop LAB color. If you want to understand any of the science under the hood, he is the Guru. Light is made of all colors. Good B&W comes from a deep understanding of color. Another extraordinary volume from Dan is "Professional Photoshop - The Classic Guide to Color Correction" Here Dan gives real world examples of how color correction is central to all image making, including B&W. Making strategic investments in learning about the science of image creation is as important as developing every other set of skills in our wonderful craft. Good Luck.

 

Thank you for these references Ben, I'll check them out. The idea that understanding color will help me understand B&W makes sense to me. This understanding, and practice may help me previsualize photographs.

 

It's interesting how some subjects seem better in B&W, and others in color. Currently its the subject and lighting, more than the composition, that makes me wonder how the image will look in B&W.

 

Roy

[roguewave]

It's interesting how some subjects seem better in B&W, and others in color. Currently its the subject and lighting, more than the composition, that makes me wonder how the image will look in B&W.

 

Roy

 

Roy, that's a good start. It would be a useful exercise to take an image that's in color & convert in in B&W in Photoshop. I believe you are on to something that is intuitive to you. Use this as a way to start to understand how small manipulations of certain colors will change & sometimes "enhance" the most important elements of the image. The idea is to find a way to separate & provide focus on the most essential element of your story. By providing a background that supports, rather than competes, with your central element, the story is more alive & seems more "natural", even though, as is all art, it's an illusion.

 

If you don't own Photoshop, buy it or at least down load a trial copy. Another very fine book is Scott Kelby's 7 Point System. It changed everything for me. Snap on.

[wlaidlaw]

I can recommend "Darkroom to Digital" a book by Eddie Ephraums that I have found both helpfull and inspiring, during my transition to digital BW. (Published by Argentum).

 

 

Best regards,

Magnus Nilsson

 

I agree with you Magnus. This book makes an excellent starting point for someone wanting to shoot B&W in digital. The edition I have at 2004 is, with the speed of change in the digital world, now somewhat out of date. I don't know if it has been updated with a later edition. The copy I bought in a S/H bookshop in Cape Town some years ago, seems to be signed by the author, Eddie Ephraums - maybe they all were.

 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

Back in the dim distant past, when I was at university, I and my fellow students were trying to snooze through a terminally boring lecture on psychology (id versus ego etc) and the significance of dreaming in colour but the lecturer had a really loud voice. To liven things up, I asked him if since the concept of black and white only really arrived with photography in the 1840's, did that mean that everyone before 1840 dreamed in colour?

 

The question did not go down well ;-}}

 

Wilson

[Jeff S]

I asked him if since the concept of black and white only really arrived with photography in the 1840's, did that mean that everyone before 1840 dreamed in colour?

 

Black and white art, e.g., da Vinci drawings, goes back centuries. Not to mention cave drawings.

 

Jeff

[wlaidlaw]

Black and white art, e.g., da Vinci drawings, goes back centuries. Not to mention cave drawings.

 

Jeff

 

I don't think the artists would have thought of these as being in "black and white". In any case this was not intended to be a post to be taken too seriously and lead to an in depth discussion. In reality the concept of black and white moving pictures, more like dreams, really did not arrive until the early bioscopes in the mid 1890's, so that might have been a more accurate/pithy comment by me at the lecture but I did not think of it until after the event.

 

Wilson

[wilfredo]

Sanyasi,

 

You've gotten lots of great suggestions already. I use both PSCS4 and Silver Efex for B&W conversion. Nothing will substitute for simply playing with your images using these software's and their various options. I had to teach mysel, and didn't get much help from books. The only thing I will add is playing with Levels. If you want your images to go from being flat to coming fully alive, Levels sliders are the key. Don't be afraid of the contrast slider either, and the old techniques of dodging and burning probably have more relevance in B&W photography (where you can take advantage of the rich range of tones available to you) than in color photography.

 

One of the exciting things about dodging and burning using advanced versions of PS is that you always have three options available to you: Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights. Most people tend to stick with Midtones and never exploit the other two. I can tell you that I used all three on the woman's face and hair in the image below.

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[wlaidlaw]

Once you get into B&W digital, you can have all sorts of fun, like putting a B&W mask in front of a colour image and then burning through the mask to the colour below. This can be useful, if you have an object you want to make stand out in front of a somewhat fussy background. A tablet makes this sort of thing much easier.

 

Wilson

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[d2mini]

Interesting thoughts in this thread so far.

But one thing that I don't think I saw mentioned is that when I'm out shooting, it's the SUBJECT that I'm thinking about, not limiting myself to b/w or color. I'm looking for what would make an interesting subject and worrying about composition. Then later back at the studio I can decide whether the image would be better in color or b/w. That's the whole beauty of digital! We have choices! Don't get me wrong, i sometimes come across a scene and think to myself that this might make a great b/w image. But I don't go out SEARCHING for b/w because then I might miss a fantastic color shot. It would be like walking around with horse blinders. Maybe good as an occasional exercise but not something I would want to make a habit of.

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