Capturing images in black & white

[Paarsh Saini]

Dear readers,

I was wondering as to whether there are some tips/tricks when it comes to capturing images in black & white mode. It's indeed a fascinating aspect of photography, especially when it comes to photographing some old buildings/monuments etc. What are your views on this subject regarding the settings that you guys employ whenever you wish to take images in this mode? 

Thank you.

[hvbemmel]

Please read chapter 42 in the Thursday photo tips

[© Tom Cooper]

I always shoot in RAW, which gives me full control of the image after the fact.  While I seldom convert to black and whiit, having the full original data allows me to control aspects of the final that would not be possible if I shot black & white from the camera.

 

For example, in a scene with a lot of blue sky, it is possible to control how light or dark the sky is by adjusting the blue curve before the B&W conversion.  That control is not possible after conversion or if B&W conversion is done in the camera.  A similar effect can be accomplished in camera using colored filters, but the level of control using filters is not the same - you either use the filter or don't use the filter, and you can't change the color of the filter.

 

Tom

[Paarsh Saini]

 @Tom Cooper, thanks sir for your response. I appreciate it. I will try shooting in RAW. But which software can I use to open RAW files? I've heard that Photoshop doesn't support RAW files.  

[Paarsh Saini]

@hvbemmel, thanks sir for your reply. The article is very informative.

[© Tom Cooper]

I don't use Photoshop much any more, but most versions of Photoshop support most RAW files.  Support for RAW in Photoshop is always growing.  Check their web site.

At the very least, your camera should have come with a RAW converter capable of producing a loss-less TIF that can be opened by almost any editing program.

Tom

[Paarsh Saini]

Ok sir. Cheers!

[Paarsh Saini]

The article referred to by @hvbemmel titled "Thursday Photo Tips" Chapter 42 on BW photography throws light on a valid point regarding how we should perceive different colours as they would appear as tones of black & white. In this regard, I feel that Exposure Compensation too plays a vital part in deciding as to what contrast suits our picture well.

[Kevin Childress]

Paarsh Saini wrote:

The article referred to by @hvbemmel titled "Thursday Photo Tips" Chapter 42 on BW photography throws light on a valid point regarding how we should perceive different colours as they would appear as tones of black & white.

I haven't read the article mentioned here but based on your comments about the perception of tones is, in my opinion, the most important aspect for one to grasp in B&W photography. Unfortunately for me it took several years for this concept to really solidify in my mind. I suppose there was a time when I thought I could convert just about any color image to B&W (if I didn't like the color version) and come away with a likable alternative. Of course that wasn't true. One day I realized that I had wasted a lot of time not capturing the correct color (tone) balance to begin with for creating successful B&W images. I typically learn the most from my previous mistakes and photography is certainly no exception! :)  As I slowly began to understand the relationship between tones and colors I suddenly had an epiphany that I needed to 'see things in black and white' to capture the sort of scenes I had in mind. 'Seeing in black and white' can be a difficult thing to visualize but with a little practice you can become very proficient at comparing tones in colors which will lead you to better selection of subject matter against certain backgrounds. 

See the image at the bottom of this post just for fun. This shows a simple color palette that has been de-saturated for comparing tones within the colors. Take particular note of the blues in the middle row and the greens on the bottom row, which of course are two colors that you'll encounter often in nature, and you'll see just how close those tones are in gray scale. Using the blue-to-green comparison alone might help one understand that photographing a primary subject that is blue in color against a green background might not provide the total contrast that one desires in their B&W images. 

I noticed a few comments in this thread about image editing. What tools exactly do you have available to you for post processing?

[Paarsh Saini]

@Kevin Childress, thanks sir for your participation. I appreciate your insights on this topic. It is really a knowledge booster for me. The image you attached really simplifies the perception of tones as we move from a coloured photo to a BW one :).Thanks for that. As far as post-processing is concerned, I just know some basics of Photoshop. I am an amateur photographer.  

[Kevin Childress]

I'm also an amateur, and saying so reminds me of a little catchphrase I came up with a while back to help keep things in perspective. It goes like this: "I'm not a professional photographer, but I'm very professional about my photography!"  :)  

You can definitely achieve a good B&W conversion in Photoshop. Forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know, but I'll go on just in case this helps. There's several ways to achieve a gray scale image in Photoshop and some methods give better results than others. If you haven't already discovered the B&W adjustment layer in Photoshop, you should definitely give it a go. The comparison below shows the B&W adjustment panel in Lightroom but the B&W adjustment layer in Photoshop behaves exactly the same way. I'm using Lightroom here so that I can give you a side-by-side comparison of before and after. The beauty in the B&W adjustment layer (as opposed to simply de-saturating the color image) is that it allows you to adjust the luminosity, or degree of brightness, for all of the colors/channels (think tones) shown in the dialogue box. And being able to adjust the luminosity of individual tones gives you a great deal of flexibility for achieving tonal separation in your B&W's. 

This is an image I purpose-shot for B&W conversion just this week, although I haven't quite yet fully realized how I want to process the image. But when I saw that red bike against that yellow wall I knew the scene had the components that I prefer in my B&W images, which in this case are two distinct and vivid colors (think tones) that would allow me to separate the colors (think tones) even further in post processing. When you look at the sliders in the adjustment panel to the right, notice the left end of each slider is darker and the right end of each slider is lighter. This only means that pushing the slider to the left will darken a given tone while pushing the slider to the right will lighten a given tone. You can see I've pushed the red bike toward black while pushing the yellow/orange wall towards white. So far I haven't gotten what I want out of this image but its a fine example of how to evaluate a scene for color/tone before opening the shutter. Comparing the reds and yellows in the original photograph to similar reds and yellows in the color chart I uploaded earlier helps to visualize each color's 'natural gray scale tone' before any luminosity adjustments are made. 

[Paarsh Saini]

Thank you sir for this great tutorial. I wasn't aware of Photoshop's BW Adjustment Layer and would try figuring that out in the software. This image, in addition to the previous one you attached does help decide as to which tones would fit the subjects well. Thanks once again :) .