By its very nature, B & W photography is an art that takes a lot of time and experimentation to master because it requires dealing with a number of challenges. When there’s no actual colour to play with, lights, contrasts and framing become highly important in achieving great photographic results and in the era of digital photography, post processing will help you get there.
But first, you should take advantage of your camera and its capabilities to shoot images that are pre-maximized for the black & white conversion process to be finalized through your photo processing software. Here are 5 quick tips to do that:
• Always shoot in RAW and preferably in color – because it gives you most control and most information to use and work with in post processing. Even when you switch to black & white from your camera settings, shooting in RAW will conserve every information - including colors - and will make your post processing work easier.
• Always shoot with lowest possible ISO – to avoid increased image noise that automatically occurs when converting your images to black & white. Even if you love the film feeling given by granulated images, you can always add this effect in post processing, but it’s incredibly hard and time consuming to remove it.
• Take advantage of low contrasts – it’s said that gloomy, dark days add an extra something to your captured images, conveying a sense of softness and mildness to the end result of your black & white story.
• Use the available light wisely – shadows, highlights and different tones will make the difference in a black and white photo.
• Use framing wisely – to emphasize your most important subject that will grab viewer’s attention in your black and white image. Use foregrounds and backgrounds to create depths and give more substance to your main subject.
original colors
But first, you should take advantage of your camera and its capabilities to shoot images that are pre-maximized for the black & white conversion process to be finalized through your photo processing software. Here are 5 quick tips to do that:
• Always shoot in RAW and preferably in color – because it gives you most control and most information to use and work with in post processing. Even when you switch to black & white from your camera settings, shooting in RAW will conserve every information - including colors - and will make your post processing work easier.
• Always shoot with lowest possible ISO – to avoid increased image noise that automatically occurs when converting your images to black & white. Even if you love the film feeling given by granulated images, you can always add this effect in post processing, but it’s incredibly hard and time consuming to remove it.
• Take advantage of low contrasts – it’s said that gloomy, dark days add an extra something to your captured images, conveying a sense of softness and mildness to the end result of your black & white story.
• Use the available light wisely – shadows, highlights and different tones will make the difference in a black and white photo.
• Use framing wisely – to emphasize your most important subject that will grab viewer’s attention in your black and white image. Use foregrounds and backgrounds to create depths and give more substance to your main subject.
original colors
grayscaled image
grayscale + curve tweaking for contrast enhancement purposes
Now the easiest way to convert your image into black & white in a post processing software is to go to Image->Mode->Grayscale and… that’s it. The possible lack of contrast in the resulted image is nothing that a curve tweaking (Image->Adjustments->Curves) can’t handle.
Another easy conversion method is switching to Black & White in the Image Adjustments menu and then fine-tuning contrasts with the help of the color sliders (see images above).
original image red channel
green channel blue channel
The more thorough way of adjusting your digital black & white images is by using the Channel Mixer and editing each color channel (red, green and blue) separately. Have a look at each color channel in turn and notice that, depending of the channel, your image can be slightly underexposed (as seen in the green channel in the example used) or even badly underexposed (as seen in the blue channel above). This will help you decide what you want to focus on when adjusting your black & white image.
Depending of what you want to obtain in order to increase details and contrasts of your black and white image, you’ll need to make the proper adjustments in the channel mixer. (Image->Adjustments->Channel mixer). When you’re happy with your result, press OK and voila!
grayscale
black & white low contrast
black & white high contrast
If you prefer Lightroom to Photoshop, there are three convenient options to convert your image to black & white in the Saved Preset menu. Again, depending of what you want to achieve, you can pick the common Grayscale setting or one of the more creative alternatives: B&W low contrast or B&W high contrast.
This is it for today, let us know which of the black & white digital photography post processing methods works better for you.
Words & Pictures Adela Trofin
Copyright ProPhotoInsights 2010
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