b+w photography

[draconianstudios]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Stop being a big girl-are your images something you are ashamed of? Oh, and by the way, no-one ever tells me what to do. Ken

could you please grow up a bit

[draconianstudios]

Originally Posted by dcclark

I'm sorry that your thread got hijacked.

Back on topic, here are a few hints from me.

First, it takes a lot of practice to learn what scenes will look good in B&W, and which ones benefit from color. Shooting B&W helps emphasize light, shadow, contrast, texture, and shapes. If your composition focuses on these (as opposed to colors, color contrast, etc.), then you may want to keep B&W in mind. Mentally mark the image for processing later.

In that line, I highly recommend NOT shooting using your camera's B&W mode. It does a generic, "one-size-fits-all" B&W conversion. You can almost always do better using some of the techniques linked earlier (especially using the channel mixer method -- I almost always do this).

One thing I often seen with B&W images is that they contain too many midtones. This isn't to say that midtones (middle greys) are bad, just that if your image is all grey, you can't see as much detail. It's important to have some good solid blacks and bright whites as well, unless you have a very specific idea in mind. You can easily stretch contrast in post-processing, if your image wasn't quite perfect.

Overall, I like your sample image. Keep it up. When shooting B&W, think about what you're trying to say by going B&W -- are you going for "old fashioned"? "Classic"? Emphasis on textures? Focus on light? There are many options, just make sure that you have something in mind.

thanks very much

[Jim Bryant]

Jesus Christ............we live in a color world these days. You want to shoot B & W..go buy film Digital B & W is do do compared to b & w film.

[Jim Bryant]

Still no debate on this eh?

[dcclark]

*shrug* I really enjoy the appearance of B&W. It can be quite striking, taking the emphasis away from colors and putting it more on shapes, lines, and overall composition.

Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it isn't. But why limit yourself?

[draconianstudios]

here is what i came up with



thanks