B & W

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Missdaisies

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No matter what I do, my black and white photos (digital) whether taken using the B & W setting or later changed to B & W, are never very striking - always usually shades of grey and slightly drab :(

Can anyone give me any tips on how to get great black and whites (usually portrait and architecture) either using the cameras settings or using photoshop


Thanks!

Sharon
 
CS2: Channel mixer, set to greyscale, increase reds. Apply s curve in levels after.

In CS3 use the B&W option in Image, Adjustments menu.
 
I agree in CS and CS2 the Chanel mixer is the best way. Everyone has a different approach. I start with 40 red 60 Green and 40 Blue. I then adjust each of these to get the look I want.

After that it's normal image processing

In CS3 the B&W conversion options are a lot better You can even add a tint at this stage.If you've CS3 you'll find it under Image>Adjustments >B&W

Hope this helps
 
I still think the method that allows the most user-input is the Channels method. I immediately go to 18% red in normal daylight shots (less if it's shot under tungsten light) then adjust the green and blue accordingly (current wisdom says that all three channels shouyld add up to a value of 100%, but really that's being picky, just slide around til you get the look you're after and worry about the niceties later).
Remember when we shot on film, normal panchromatic stock was always more sensitive to blue wavelengths than the other primaries, so to reproduce the 'feel' of a B&W print, you need to alter the channels to reflect this.
Best thing is to shoot RAW and play around - I'd never consider using the camera's B&W setting and to be honest I have no idea why it's still an option on modern Professional and Pro-Sumer models as we all use some kind of image-manipulation software to post-process shots.
 
Arkady said:
Best thing is to shoot RAW and play around - I'd never consider using the camera's B&W setting and to be honest I have no idea why it's still an option on modern Professional and Pro-Sumer models as we all use some kind of image-manipulation software to post-process shots.
Click to expand...

I expect I'm not alone in this...when shooting, if I'm expecting to process a shot as B&W I'll often set the camera to B&W mode to get a feel of how it's going to come out. I shoot in RAW so it gets converted back to colour in lightroom but it's still a handy feature. Well it is for me anyway.
 
I also do that. I have various b&w presets for red and green channels.
 
Impressive gallery. I'll read through those later.
 
I agree with all of the above suggestions.. However, I always go to the layers palette and choose the channels tab next to the layers and click on each of the RGB channels and it will give you a good indication of the finished mono image should you choose one of these channels as the main colour channel. For instance, if the mono is erring on the Blue side then select channel mixer and choose Blue and tick the mono box at the bottom (CS2). This will show 100% in the Blue channel. Play around with the others by dropping the Blue slider a touch and introduce Red and Green. As a rule of thumb, I was always advised to keep the accumilated figures to 100% - Example:- Blue - 52, Red - 30 & Green - 18 =100%.

Hope that helps.
 
Another way which (almost) simulates the use of colour filters in B&W film photography is to split the image into the red/green/blue colour channels and just disgard the green and blue chanels. Red chanel only can give dramatic skies- but may not suit all tastes and subjects. There are problems with this technique because of the nature of CCDs (they have two green photo sensor sites to each red/blue pair) is that you will be effectively loosing some tone information. Here are some examples of red channel only images:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f206/laser_jock99/Alderney/Red12.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f206/laser_jock99/Alderney/Red47.jpg

Blue or green chanel only might work equally well depending on the nature of the shot.
 
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