# Black & White



## ray5 (Jul 22, 2014)

Hello All,
I recently just experimented in doing some black and white photography and was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. I think it has been asked before but 
1) Is there a difference between shooting in monochrome and shooting in full color and then converting it into B&W using software?
2) Compared to some older film and also digital images I noticed that the blacks in mine were not as black but more dark greyish. I prefer the pitch dark black look. How do I achieve that?
Thanks
Ray


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## e17paul (Jul 22, 2014)

I can only speak for film, but an orange filter increases contrast, giving blacker blacks. Yellow is more subtle, red stronger. With digital, it may be worth playing around in post, or with camera settings.


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## jannatul18 (Jul 23, 2014)

My approach to this has always been to shoot in full color and to edit later if necessary.


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## tolusina (Jul 23, 2014)

Shoot RAW + .jpg in monochrome and you'll have both.

Your on camera review and the .jpgs will be monochrome reflecting both the software engineers' intent as well as your own.

The RAW files will have full color information so that you can tweak in post to exactly suit your tastes and artistic vision.


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## drummstikk (Jul 23, 2014)

Tolusina has the right idea. Just shoot RAW+JPG or color RAW or JPG and convert in post for maximum control. The in-camera black and white can be surprisingly good, but if you want to really take control of how the tones render, you want to start from the full-color original. 

By blending the RGB channels, you can simulate the effects of any color filter. I believe Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and ACR all have facility to mix the color channels to a wide variety of grayscale results so you can bring out your inner Ansel on landscapes or give your portraits the drama of Yousef Karsh or Helmut Newton. 

Assuming you want the drama of B&W while still maintaining some natural realism, resist the temptation to make your blacks too black or whites too white. I try to keep,the whites at or below 4% and blacks limited to about 96%. There pretty much is no pure white (outside of speculars) or pure black in the real visible world.

Of course, if your aim is graphic or artistic effect, the rule book is in the shredder.


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## ray5 (Jul 24, 2014)

Great suggestions.I did what some have suggested. RAW and jpg. I am very lazy in post processing and do very little. Some B&W right out of camera came out amazing and the exact color version did not impress me perhaps because of the drama or perhaps because I grew up with B&W most of my childhood and saw color images later. Thanks


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## AcutancePhotography (Jul 25, 2014)

Another advantage of shooting RAW and converting in PP is that what happens if the picture you took, with the intention of being B/W, turns out to be excellent in color? Shooting RAW you can have the best of both worlds. Shoot Monochrome and you are stuck with B/W.

That is one of the advantages of digital over film. In the film days, we had no choice. If I put B/W film in the camera, it did not matter how good the picture would have looked in color, I was shootin B/W.

Why remove one of the advantages of shooting digital by restricting the camera to record B/W only? Do it in post and it will be done your way, not Canon's way. 

Good luck with it. I find myself processing more B/W than I thought I would. There just is something special about a good B/W shot. 8)


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## IMG_0001 (Jul 25, 2014)

If you shoot raw and then convert to B&W, you have control over the conversion.

I don't use Photoshop much but if I'm not mistaken, the basic monochrome is just a balanced conversion of all color channels luminance to greyscale and generally results in a low contrast, somewhat unnatural image and you loose color information in the conversion as it turns to 8-bit. I think you can make a B&W conversion in the channel mixer and keep the channels information for optimizing the images, but I've never done it myself.

On the other hand, I think Lightroom converts by weighting each color channel luminance to the same ratio as the sensor, so twice the weight for greens. This results in a somewhat more natural images. You can then use the channel mixer tool to change the effect to taste and the white balance will also influence the conversion. I quite like this tool. The channel mixer works the same way as filtering on B&W film, therefore red darkens foliage and sky, blue lightens the sky and so on. Basically a color filter (or cursor in digital) lightens its component and darkens its complement.

In camera monochrome is likely different for each camera model. It might look good or not and it is jpeg so compressed to 8-bit and won't allow for playing with the channel mixer.

Happy shooting.


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## ray5 (Aug 5, 2014)

Thanks for all the replies. I always thought that shooting in B&W was somehow better than converting a color to B&W. That ignorance is dispelled now. Thanks


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## shining example (Aug 6, 2014)

drummstikk said:


> I believe Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and ACR all have facility to mix the color channels to a wide variety of grayscale results



Yep. If you're using Adobe Camera Raw, go to the HSL/Greyscale tab, tick the "Convert to greyscale" box, and play around with the colour sliders. You'll get far better/more interesting results if you convert to B/W "by hand" instead of letting your camera or the software do it for you.


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