Black & white - how do you decide when it would look best?

KJ_2008

I've seen some beautiful black and white photos on this site, I'm guessing most of them were converted from colour?

When you look at a colour photo what helps you decide it would look good in black and white? (Or is that a stupid question? )

Is it the lighting, shadows, etc?

I've tried converting a load of my photos but most just looked plain dreary, I find it hard to pick out ones that would look really well n B&W.

Is it just plain old trial and error or are there obvious things that help you choose?

TelePaul

Don't be afraid to really boost the contrast with b + w. Dodge and burn. I like converting overcast landscapes to b+w. And with a digital cam, always convert to colour as opposed to using the built-in b+w settings.

ThOnda

From my experience - most of the pictures look better in BW.
My favourite way to produce BW photo is to add new layer - Hue/Saturation, slide Saturation to -100 and add photography filters (red, orange, warm), Curves and Levels below that layer (the Hue/Saturation one). If you add adjustment layers below, you would see all changes/adjustments).

mehfesto2

I like 'Black and Whites' with no large areas of one shade of gray.
I think we all know that bland, dead gray that kills any B&W picture if in excess!

Personally, I like to see big contrast, lots of shades of grey and a black area too, if possible. No 'pure' white though. Looks too sharp on the eye, usually.

nilhg

KJ_2008 wrote: »

I've seen some beautiful black and white photos on this site, I'm guessing most of them were converted from colour?

When you look at a colour photo what helps you decide it would look good in black and white? (Or is that a stupid question? )

Is it the lighting, shadows, etc?

I've tried converting a load of my photos but most just looked plain dreary, I find it hard to pick out ones that would look really well n B&W.

Is it just plain old trial and error or are there obvious things that help you choose?

I always found it hard to get my head around doing this, until I got Lightroom and especially since I got a large number of B/W presets for it, this video from onone will give you an idea of what's possible. their free presets are here

MagicMarker

You don't know until you try...

I much prefer B&W photos in general but sometimes you have a photo that you think will look great in B&W and when it's done it just doesn't have the same impact as the colour version.

Thirdfox

B&W when you want to focus on the subject matter and colour would just be clutter...

Colour when you want to focus on the colour (maybe that is the "subject matter")

e.g. a picture of a baby looking into the camera - b&w would make the child's anatomical features stand out (eyes, nose, mouth etc.) but if s/he had sparkling blue/green/*insert colour here* eyes or a rose-ish tinted cheeks then colour might be a good option.

hussey

when you shoot in B&W contrast, texture, lighting, shape and tone become the dominant elements in the scene.

Shadows and highlights tend to feature more in a B&W shot.
Colour is often used to lead the eye to a particular area of a scene. In B&W it will be more about the subject&contrast.

B&W can really work well in low light conditions (like a cloudy day) as they can produce a gritty 'raw' image.
Clouds also look great in B&W.

here is an interesting article
http://www.davebeckerman.com/general/Why-Black-And-White-Photography.html

KJ_2008

Thanks for the replies everyone, some interesting stuff there. I have Lightroom but use Aperture much more - for this kind of thing, ie converting photos from colour to b&w, is Lightroom superior, or are they much the same?

magicbastarder

mehfesto2 wrote: »

I like 'Black and Whites' with no large areas of one shade of gray.
I think we all know that bland, dead gray that kills any B&W picture if in excess!

CabanSail

There are so many options to doing a good Mono Conversion. Recently, since I bought the DVD's, I have been using the techniques that are taught by Guy Gowan. The methods he shows in the Colour to Mono tutorials are the best I have seen.

PopeBuckfastXVI

I tend to know in advance if I'm taking a bw picture and shoot acordingly.

I use bw to try to set a mood, and as mentioned it works well in crap weather, which we get a lot of in Ireland.

It's rare enough that I'll look at a colour picture and chance a conversion to bw, but sometimes one I shot for bw I end up leaving in colour.

The main thing for me when doing bw is making sure you've got enough shapes in the photo for high contrast.

I use bibble lite, which has a bw conversion tool that allows you to put a colour filter on the resultant image, so it's like shooting on b&w film with a colour filter.

I'll choose whichever one I find most pleasing. And I always pump up the contrast a lot.

Have a look at these two photos... both taken on the same day and the railings in both are the same colour blue, but I've used different colour filters for the bw conversion:

PhotoMe

very interesting topic. kj_2008 - would you have a photo to show what you have already tried and maybe others can then show how they would process the image in a different way?

l pearse

There's a magazine selling in Easons called 'Black & White Photography'
It's very cheap (6 euro) & you might get some tip in there.

sheesh

I use this tutorial when converting to black and white.

TelePaul

I thinki it was last months Digital Photo that had a good guide to B+W but I'm not sure...I get them all mixed up.

KJ_2008

PhotoMe wrote: »

very interesting topic. kj_2008 - would you have a photo to show what you have already tried and maybe others can then show how they would process the image in a different way?

Will dig one out in the morning PhotoMe, away from my desktop tonight - I have dozens of failed B&W conversions to choose from!

PopeBuckfastXVI

KJ_2008 wrote: »

Will dig one out in the morning PhotoMe, away from my desktop tonight - I have dozens of failed B&W conversions to choose from!

Maybe you could post your own conversion, and say what you think it lacks, and the original to give us a go at our own conversions?

Calina

Borders have an interesting looking book on Advanced Black and White Photography for Digital Photographers by I think John Freeman (yes I picked it up, put it in the pile, read bits of it, put it back, picked it up again and eventually decided that 400E worth of photography books was enough and bought a crochet one instead).

I generally use a black and white adjustment layer to do the conversion but you can get some nice effects with a gradient map as well.

One of the tricks I have been learning has been to visualise how I want what colours to look in black and white. If you have a vivid blue sky, for example, you can make that startlingly black by pulling back the blue channel in the adjustment layer controls. More often than not I bear what I want the colours to appear as before I do the conversion.

Oh yeah, sorry I use Photoshop to do the conversion.