Photographing in color is the most commonly used form of photography, and is perfect under most conditions. However, there are times when the simplicity of black and white produces a more interesting image.
Black and white photography requires a different mind set and skill set, because the picture is formed purely from different shades go gray, from the lightest shade, pure white, to the darkest shade, pure black. As digital photography becomes more popular, black and white film is increasingly hard to come by. Unless you are fortunate enough to have your own dark room or a specialty lab near you, getting high quality prints made will be difficult. The machine processing that is done at most one hour mini labs leaves a lot to be desired if you want quality film and print processing.
Many modern digital cameras have a dedicated black and white mode, but in most cases the camera just desaturates the picture and make it look washed out and flat with little contrast control. It is actual better to capture your digital images in color and then convert them to black and white in Photoshop.
The easiest way, but not necessarily the best way of making a color photo black and white in Photoshop is to convert the mode to gray scale. But this will limit your options if you want to enhance the picture later on because a lot of the original information in your image file is discarded.
Shooting traditional black and white photography, with film, gives you the option of using colored filters over your lens is to create a dramatic contrast. This is done because hues that appear to be different in color can merge into one shade of grey when seen in monochrome. The intensity of the colors appears to be the same, even though the actual colors are different.
For example, a blue sky with white clouds sometimes to be weak and washed out in a black and white photograph. When you place a red filter over the lens, it will darken the blue sky and create more contrast between the sky and clouds. The red filter blocks the blue color waves and creates more contrast in the red color spectrum.
The great thing about Photoshop is it gives you the ability to experiment with a variety of color filters and get the effect that you are looking for. The method I most often use and I find works best involves keeping the picture in RGB color mode. I then use the channel adjustment option and manipulate the various color channels.
For example, if you go to the image adjustment tab and choose the channels tab you can click on any one of the various color channels, for example the red channel and create more contrast just like you would by putting a red filter over your camera lens when shooting black and white film. Experiment by clicking on the green and blue channels to see how differently each one affects your image. The results will be very different and will open your eyes to a new creative process.
You can then use some of the other Photoshop adjustment tools to finalize your image. From here you may want to use either levels or curves, or even selective color to create a fine art black and white that will rival some of the all time great photographers like Ansell Adams. The tools in Photoshop can, and should be used to get stunning black and white and color images. Photoshop will enable you to get the most from your photographic experience.
Learn How to create stunning Black and White Images and much more with Photo-Shop-Made Easy’s 21 Video Tutorials.
Till next time, all the best…Terry
Recent Comments