I find myself attracted more and more to color although I find it more difficult than black and white. I don’t mean that it’s easy to produce a good monochrome picture, but it’s often possible to get something interesting out of an average color shot by converting it to black and white — something I’ve been guilty of more often that I’d have liked.

What’s your approach? Do you shoot first then decide on b&w or color depending on the outcome, or do you visualize the picture in b&w or color before you release the shutter?

PS: This is my entry for Lens Day’s ‘Yellow’ challenge.

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Comments

Leigh on May 31, 2005 #1

Beautiful yellow colour - it’s really good. Now regarding your question. I never shot to “see” in B&W - not when I’m shooting in digital. I just shoot “what” I see. It’s not until later in the processing stages that I add further vision to it. I start by duplicating the image and by soft toning it in PS, which raises the contrast, and then I desaturate it to the point I think looks good to my eye.

It’s rare that I post up a digital image in complete B&W. If I’m going to work in B&W I have to think in terms of B&W, so I work it in film.

I find that if an image is desaturated - one that’s ben produced by a digital camera - it looks grey and flat - no life to it - and many - including myself have and do make that mistake. The Image Factory do an excellent plug in for PS that is really good for B&W work. Other than that, I’m afraid I’m rather “Old School” B&W - I feel cheated when I see a digital B&W image - perhaps my opinion will change at some point but I do love B&W film and the results from it. If you need any further help just email me

Marc on June 1, 2005 #2

In response to Leigh, some digital cameras do offer dedicated b&w modes, and I think some even offer digital filters to mimic colour filters.

And to Andréas, sometimes I do ’see’ a scene and know it has to be b&w. I don’t claim to be a master of b&w work, or even a competent journeyman really. But I do prefer it for certain areas of my work. But I like having the flexibility of having it in colour so I can manipulate the channels.

luminouslens on June 1, 2005 #3

I do both. Sometimes I see a scene and know that I am shooting it to present in b&w. Other times I play with what I’ve photographed and just see what works. But since I have one color photoblog and one b&w, I try to come up wiht something good enough of each every time I post.

Sort of in response to Leigh, but also more generally… I don’t ever just desaturate to b&w, mainly because I want more control over the conversion and because I agree that the images tend to look fairly flat. That’s also the reason I don’t allow my camera to actually shoot in b&w because I don’t want to be beholden to the default conversion / calcuations of the camera. I usually open two copies of every image I plan to work on, and in one of them I convert to b&w using the Channel Mixer and if I don’t get what I want, then I use Calculations. I’ve also finally learned to make adjustments on layers so that if I need to go back and adjust the b&w conversion, I can (e.g., if adjusting curves and levels didn’t bring out a certain contrast the way I thought it would).

I am definitely not of the opinion that b&w can save an otherwise interesting picture, however! In fact, I often feel like color usually saves a photo. But maybe this is because I post a b&w image every time I post and I’ve realized how hard it is to come up with one I like every single time, whereas I always have tons of color ones to choose from!

chiaroscuro on June 3, 2005 #4

I think b&w conversion is a tricky process and there is so much to learn about it. But I do agree with you that sometimes a photo will look better in b&w than in color, especially if the colors are too distracting. I read somewhere that a common mistake in photographic composition is to make a photo that is too cluttered, so that by reducing the image to its tones, you sometimes get simplification and greater beauty. But, I also think that sometimes the opposite is true–that some photos definitely work better in color than in black and white. I think it depends on the particular scene, and also your own “eye” and what you tend to pay attention to when you’re composing a photo. In my case, I definitely notice color, and I like to consciously use color in my compositions. I think many of my photos would lose their punch in b&w. But recently I did find a few photos in my archives that I nearly threw away, but discovered that they looked a lot better in monochrome. I guess I should try it more often!

andreas on June 3, 2005 #5

Thank you all, I’m so glad UZ has such insightful visitors!

Mark on June 4, 2005 #6

Lovely picture. It appeals to me because of the dreamy effect. Was it shot through glass?

About B&W, I sometimes recognize that the shot will be monotone, but usually (during post processing) I will first try it as B&W and see if it works. Unlink you, I find it much harder to do, but will always take the B&W approach first, providing the composition allows it (and my eyes can see it).

It became much easier when I started using the Virtual Photographer plugin to screen the shots for B&W. Easier than channel mixer, etc.

genedavinci on June 20, 2005 #7

beautifully photographed!

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