Black & White Pipeline: Converting Digital Color into Striking Grayscale Images [Book Review]

It just doesn’t go away! Dating from the very earliest days of photography, capturing an image in black and white, call it what you will, for many the monochrome image was and is photography.

Many digicams have a B&W mode for original capture and there’s much software offering sophisticated techniques to transform, convert and maximise an original colour image.

Author Dillard makes the point that colour images are often described as “lifelike, true and real”, while B&W photography steps around these labels and delivers a representation rather than a mirror.

Almost right from the book’s opening chapters there is heavy emphasis on RAW capture and post treatment in Photoshop; I could find no reference in the book to Apple’s Aperture nor Adobe’s Lightroom applications.

Dillard comments that most people using Photoshop take the Image>Mode>Greyscale route, allowing the software to create a single grey channel. He adds “That’s great — its’ very easy …” but that path offers no control over colour mapping and any benefits gained from individual hue control.

Photoshop in its CS4 iteration does, in fact, do a fine job of B&W conversion, but study of the book will take you much further and explain how you can take increased control of the outcome. Later chapters deal with camera versus software filters, dodging and burning, B&W printing and the use of RIPs.

The book offers many levels of tuition, from beginner to pro. Recommended.

Author: T Dillard.
Publisher: Lark Books.
Distributor: Capricorn Link.
Length: 240 pages.
ISBN 13 978 1 60059 400 7.
Price: Grab a Copy of Black & White Pipeline: Converting Digital Color into Striking Grayscale Images for $21.56 USD (28% off).