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Black and White Digital


Christine Animal

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Just to drive you all mad, until I posted some old black and white photos today, I had never thought whether it was possible to take them with digital cameras.

I have just had a look and it seems some digital cameras have black and white mode.  Does anyone know anything about this, have you taken black and white with a digital?

Digital Black and White in Photoshop

 

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You can do this with a lot of digital cameras by adjusting the mode before taking the picture but my experience is that it's better to use Phtoshop on a colour image as the camera produces a kind of "shaded" result that doesn't, to my eye, have quite the quality of a traditional film image.  IMHO nothing beats film for black and white but others will no doubt prove me wrong with some lovely digital stuff!

Anyway, as I said before on another thread, try it, digital is FREE to experiment with!

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I agree with Coops. I do love monochrome, especially the bite of TriX through a Nikkor, the steps are just right. I shoot everything in colour, Jpg for everyday stuff, RAW if it is a bit more serious, then beat them up in Aperture or Photoshop Elements. I find that monochrome often needs tweaking on the brightness and contrast controls. It can be very effective, though.
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Not worth setting the camera to B&W - just do it in your photoeditor.  Just did this one in Photoimpression, it took about two seconds.  Just removed all colour saturation.  Or wipe it sepia.  There's all sorts you can do.  But a lot of it is just gimmickry.

[IMG]http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i26/cassiscassis/ropemaker.jpg[/IMG]

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  • 3 weeks later...

This photo was found amongst my mother in laws bits and pieces when we sadly attended her funeral in November this year. She was 94. I just think it's a wonderful photo of good times past. It was quite badly damaged and required a fair bit of touch-up work.

 

[IMG]http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p211/Bugbear2/Gwenonrock.jpg[/IMG]

 

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That's lovely Gary, so typical of many of our family photos.  Now if we start getting those out, we'll have to get the hankies out too !  Maybe we should start a thread, my great grandmother was a photographer.  I don't know much about her, but I have a few photos she took of the family.  There is noone left to tell me more about her, but I believe she was quite a pioneer (photographywise) in those days.

 

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  • 1 year later...

I took these using the Blk and white setting on my camera , I really like them as you concentrate on the subject in stead of the colour [blink] if you know what I mean

 

 

[IMG]http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/pads_03/IMG_3301.jpg[/IMG]

 

 

[IMG]http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/pads_03/IMG_3342.jpg[/IMG]

 

Look mum no fillings !!

[IMG]http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/pads_03/IMG_3337.jpg[/IMG]

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My two penneth for what it's worth..... I wouldn't bother using the in-camera B&W setting unless you do want to (or don't have access to) image editing software. You'll always produce a better result that way. If you have access to image editing software you don't (ideally) want to just desaturate. Whilst this will give you a B&W image it won't be optimal. Which conversion method you use will depend on what software you have available to you.

The additional benefit of shooting in colour and converting afterwards is that you retain the option to have a colour version.

Christine, I see you have put the link to Bob Johnson's excellent Earthbound Light site... I sort of "know" Bob through participation in the equally excellent (for Nikon users) Nikonians site.

I personally tend to use a B&W conversion method know as the Gorman/Holbert Conversion method which works with photoshop CS2 and also I would think CS3.

I have this recorded as a Photoshop Action and I can send this to anyone interested. Here's an example below.

[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e170/DerekJordan/ID9_7_8.jpg?t=1202500052[/img]

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I've not  tried the B/W setting on my camera yet, but you have all inspired me to have a go.  I love colour photo's but I think landscapes in black & white tell just as much of a story.  In fact, seeing as it is such a glorious day here today, I may well go out and take a few shots.  Maybe with the Sepia setting as well.

Keep your photos coming, they are all brilliant.

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