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 proprietary in nature and fairly rudimentary in their capabilities. If the software has a black and white conversion tool it will probably be fairly limited in what it can do.
Third party software have more capability than bundled software. Some popular software titles include:
- Photoshop CS3 (Win, Mac)
- Photoshop Elements (Windows)
- Photoshop Lightroom (Win, Mac)
- Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 (Windows)
- GIMP (Win, Mac, Unix)
The most popular photo editing software is Photoshop by Adobe. Photoshop CS3 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 CS3. Lightroom is a tool for cataloging and editing large numbers of photos quickly and efficiently. Paint Shop 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:
In addition, methods such as Gorman require:
- Lab color mode
- masking
A general rule for using any editing software: do not edit your original photographs. Always make a copy of your photo and edit the copy. Keep your originals in a safe place, such as burning them onto a CD.