Black and White Photography
in the Digital Age
There are many ways to achieve optimal black and white images with a digital camera. If your digital SLR camera has a black and white mode you can choose this as a pre-process method. I prefer post-process methods however because you have more control over the outcome of the image. I will explain the best methods I have used to convert my images to black and white. You will need Photoshop for these processes. The most current version of PS is CS4 however earlier versions will work just fine for most of the conversions except for the black and white conversion adjustment which came out in PS CS3. You can also use Photoshop Elements, which is much less expensive. I have Photoshop CS3 and the steps I outline below are with that version. The simplest method is to desaturate the image and then fine-tune it with the brightness and contrast adjustment.Here are the steps: Step 1) Bring image into Photoshop
Step 2) Duplicate image - you never want to work on an original image. Step 3) Image - Adjustments - Desaturate
Step 4) Image - Adjustments - brightness and contrast.Increase the brightness and then the contrast. Adjust until you are satisfied.
Step 5) Save file Another method is to use the new black and white adjustment built into Photoshop CS3. Earlier versions do not have this tool. This tool can be found under "Adjustments" Once you have applied the tool you can fine tune using the red, green and blue channel markers. Typically they should add up to 100. You can also use the "auto setting"
There are many other methods for converting images to black and white including third party plug-ins. Among the most popular is from Nik Software. I have also purchased actions from
Kevin Kubota
and
Photo Effects
The beauty of the Photoshop actions is that someone else has done all the work and all that is left for you do is click on the action. They are very quick and you can achieve amazing results with all the different looks. Warm toned, silver toned, high fashion, sepia, moonlight, grainy, and punchy are just some of the options. You would have to spend tons of time to learn how to create the actions yourself. I highly recommend purchasing Photoshop actions from either Kevin of Gavin (listed above)What Makes an Acceptable Black and White Image? First you must have a well-exposed and sharp image. If the image is under-exposed it will appear muddy and flat in the conversion. Next have an interesting subject matter. Portraits generally are suitable for a black and white conversion. Landscapes must have gradations between white and black. Look for a scene that has bright and dark areas and middle gray. The zone system developed by a famous photographer, Ansel Adams, shows how zones are broken up into 9 zones; 0 being pure black 9 being pure white. An excellent article on this topic can be found at
this website.
Now that we are working digitally with the 8 bit Photoshop software, we are still working with shades of gray. If you pull up the levels adjustment tool you will see the representative and tones within your image. Generally you want most tones represented.
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