Introduction to Black and White Digital Photography

In-Camera Black and White vs Software Conversion

There are two ways to create black and white digital photographs. One way is to set your camera to black and white mode (if it has a black and white mode) and take a picture. A better way is to take color photographs and convert them to black and white using photo editing software.

Why is the second way better? There are plenty of reasons:

You can undo it.

When you set your camera to black and white mode you are committed to taking a black and white image. There is no color backup. With a color photograph, you can undo your conversion and try again. Or you can leave it as a color photo.

You get better results.

Your camera's black and white image has only 256 shades of gray. A color image can have over 16 million different colors. Color images have more information that you can use to create better black and white images.

You have more control.

Your camera doesn't care what your subject is (portrait, landscape, still life, street, etc) or what the conditions are (indoor, outdoor, sunny, cloudy, low light, etc). Your camera will take a black and white photograph the same way, every time. With software conversion you have total control. You can adjust your technique to suit the photograph.

Is there any advantage to using in-camera black and white? About the only advantage in-camera black and white has is you don't have to buy potentially expensive editing software. However, editing software is more flexible. There is nothing your in-camera black and white can do that photo editing software can't do as good or better.

Photo Editing Software

Most digital cameras come bundled with its own photo editing software CD. However, bundled software tend to be fairly limited in what they can do.

Third party software have more capability than bundled software. Some popular software titles include:

• Photoshop (Win, Mac)
• Photoshop Elements (Windows)
• Adobe Lightroom (Win, Mac)
• Paint Shop Photo Pro (Windows)
• GIMP (Win, Mac, Unix)

The most popular photo editing software is Photoshop by Adobe. Photoshop is a professional photo editing tool, but many amateurs use it as well. Photoshop Elements is aimed for non-professional users and is more affordable than Photoshop. Lightroom is a tool for cataloging and editing large numbers of photos quickly and efficiently. Paint Shop Photo Pro by Corel is aimed at the same audience as Photoshop Elements and is priced competitively. Finally, there is a free tool available called GIMP. GIMP is also the only tool that runs under Unix/Linux.

Almost all editing software has grayscale conversion and brightness/contrast adjustment. However, using just these two features may not give you the best results. At the very least, the editing software you choose should have the following features:

• grayscale conversion
• levels adjustment
• curves adjustment
• channel mixer
• hue adjustment
• desaturation

In addition, methods such as Gorman require:

• Lab color mode
• masking

 

Next: Selecting Your Photo