Blackk blacks and white whites - not greys!

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andya700

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Andy
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I am converting a lot of my street scene, festival and hopefully in the near future wedding shots into black and white, but to my hyper critical eye, I am not getting brilliant whites and deep, deep blacks, and when I up the contrast levels, or increase black levels, it still isn't doing it for me, even when others say they like the images.
So, how do you folks shoot great portraits etc, and get such sharp, vivid, dynamic black and white shots?

Andy
 
Dynamic black and white pictures rely on a lot of greys. There should be very little actual white or black. The appearance of the tones in you pictures will depend on how you are viewing them. Computer screens cannot actually do either black or white and prints will depend on the paper and inks used.
 
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Achieve the right DR in the renditions and
make sure you have a correct WB.

A successful conversion always starts with
proper colours!
 
When I convert to b&w in Lightroom, I adjust the exposure to get the mid tones where I want them, then I press J on the keyboard to highlight clipped highlight and shadows, and then I adjust the black and white sliders until I can see that I'm just about clipping each end, but usually only a very small amount in unimportant areas. I find this gives me all the contrast I need and a full range of tones, without having to touch the contrast slider.

Probably not the textbook way to do it, and other people probably have much better ways, but it suits me perfectly and does just what I need.
 
The silver efex - does it ONLY wrk with Lightroom, or will it work with NX2 as well?
 
I'm pretty sure it's just for Lightroom, Photoshop and PE.
 
If you drag and drop an image onto the Nik desktop icon it will open in the suite.
 
Shoot for full range. Set your black and white point in PP.

A good calibrated monitor is essential.
 
Lensflare said:
The silver efex - does it ONLY wrk with Lightroom, or will it work with NX2 as well?
Click to expand...
It works as a stand-alone application as well as a plug-in.
 
Carl Hall said:
When I convert to b&w in Lightroom, I adjust the exposure to get the mid tones where I want them, then I press J on the keyboard to highlight clipped highlight and shadows, and then I adjust the black and white sliders until I can see that I'm just about clipping each end, but usually only a very small amount in unimportant areas. I find this gives me all the contrast I need and a full range of tones, without having to touch the contrast slider.

Probably not the textbook way to do it, and other people probably have much better ways, but it suits me perfectly and does just what I need.
Click to expand...

It's hard to improve on that as a technique. SFX just adds a multitude of ways to adjust the amount each colour contributes to the final luminosity and huge array of different ways of manipulating the contrast - but it's so easy to overcook images with SFX that I've pretty much stopped using it.

There's only one thing I'd add - don't be afraid to let some areas go totally black or totally white if that suits the image.
 
juggler said:
It's hard to improve on that as a technique. SFX just adds a multitude of ways to adjust the amount each colour contributes to the final luminosity and huge array of different ways of manipulating the contrast - but it's so easy to overcook images with SFX that I've pretty much stopped using it.

There's only one thing I'd add - don't be afraid to let some areas go totally black or totally white if that suits the image.
Click to expand...



Agreed,

A lot of people nowadays say "oh you've got to raise the sliders to see the shadow detail".

I tend to like the more silhouetted look if the subject calls for it.
 
juggler said:
There's only one thing I'd add - don't be afraid to let some areas go totally black or totally white if that suits the image.
Click to expand...

GreenNinja67 said:
A lot of people nowadays say "oh you've got to raise the sliders to see the shadow detail".

I tend to like the more silhouetted look if the subject calls for it.
Click to expand...

I 100% agree with both of you here, it's called "black and white" not "darker grey and lighter grey". :D

Many times now I've pushed the black slider back down until a fair proportion of the image is totally black, and vice versa for white, but only if the individual image calls for it. I don't really have a rule for how much black/white is in the image, but I usually like it to have at least some.
 
Agree with all three of you!

Only thing I'd add is to the OP. If there are particular images edited how you like, get them into your raw converter or PS and check out the histograms. I know every image is different but this might give you some clues on how to adjust your curves to get that look. Whilst black and white points are key, it might be the fact that the shadows are all pretty dark too that gives that inky depth to them?
 
I've been through the sfx for everything phase too, hardly use it now as it's too easy to overcook.

I've been trying Topaz b&w effects lately and find it less in your face.
 
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