B&W in Digital Photography

The questions I could find regarding B&W in digital photography seemed dated

considering the pace of development in modern DSLR's. So I want to ask the

question again? I'm buying (most likely Nikon or Canon but I have no loyalties)

a digital SLR with the intention of learning B&W photography all over again.

It's been a few years since I worked at making prints but now I have the time to

pursue this endeavor and I look forward at the very least to being away from the

chemicals. So, two questions. Is there an obvious advantage favoring B&W

photography in any of the DSLR's presently on the market or those announced and

about to appear? I think I remember reading that Canon had dial in filters for

black and white. Is this an important factor to consider? And, I know that I'll

have to learn Photoshop (yikes!) and I'm wondering if any of you who have worked

with Elements think it would be sufficient for an advancing amateur who will not

be seeking to become professional and who just wants to have good time growing

B&W digital skills as an enthusiastic hobbiest? Thanks very much.

From what I've seen and read the printer is a more critical piece in digital B & W than the camera. Few inkjet printers are maximized for it.

>>I know that I'll have to learn Photoshop (yikes!)<<

 

Well, you had to learn about chemicals, temperatures, CC filters, etc... doing it the traditional way. I sitll have all my photochemistry books :)

 

IN short: The best results will be achieved by de-saturating the image and processing it in PS (or whatever program you decide to use). As for the final look, it's a matter of taste.

 

For printers, there are monochrome ink systems which I think are the best options right now for printing B$W digitally. Otherwise, I have had good results making a "digital negative" and doing contact prints the traditional way.

My .02 cent's worth: Don't use the camera's "built-in" B&W mode. You can do it better in Photoshop by in effect mimicking different colored filters using a feature called Channel Mixer. There are numerous "Plug-ins" for Photoshop (These are little programs that run from within Photoshop) that will mimick certain B&W film emulsions. As for the printers - the manufacturers are starting to wake up to the fact that people actually *like* B&W! So most newer models by Epson, HP and even Canon (12 inks!) can handle B&W quite well. That wasn't the case just a year or two ago. Things are getting much better for digital B&W photographers. Good luck!

Don't desaturate, that is quite possibly the worst way to create a black and white image, inferior to most digital camera's black and white mode. Use the channel mixer, the gradient map, the Imaging Factory Plug In, or even the LAB method outlined in some books. Do not use desaturate.

<center>

<img src="http://www.gdgphoto.com/ramsey/image/rmsy-05a-4012.jpg"><br>

<b> Wall & Chimney :: Ramsey, Isle of Man 2005 </b><br>

<i>© 2006 by Godfrey DiGiorgi, All Rights Reserved<br>

captured with Pentax *ist DS </i><br>

</center><br>

The key to understanding B&W in the context of digital capture is that it is a rendering

process. A digital camera always captures a full spectrum of light. To make B&W

photographs you render that capture to a monochromatic form. I prefer to work with RAW

captures and have developed a B&W rendering workflow that utilizes the Photoshop CS2

Channel Mixer, but there are probably a dozen good different ways to obtain B&W

rendering.

<br><br>

Godfrey

The way I am doing digital B&W these days is to shoot in the camera's native raw format

and then use Adobe ACR (the raw converter built in to Photoshop CS2) to process the

image. I take saturation down to 0 and then shift over to the Calibration tab and play

withthe Red, Geeen, Blue and Shadow saturation and sometimes Hue levels. This works as

a much more precise contrast rendering control than B&W film + filter + devloper

combination can ever possibly achieve. I then ope nthe iamge in Photoshop, do a

"raw" (mild) edge sharpen step, and then convert to gray scale If I am satisfied with the

B&W rendering.

Why do I d it this way?

 

A.) all ofthe color information is stil lthere i nthe raw file: the saturation and calibration

controls I set are just a set of instructions - all ofthe originall color data is still i nthe raw

file here and it is a much faster way to work.

 

See the "Photoshop CS2 RAW" book (O'Reilly) by Mikkael Aaland. .

>>Don't desaturate, that is quite possibly the worst way to create a black and white image, inferior to most digital camera's black and white mode.<<

 

I totally disagree with that statement.

There's zero control with desaturate, it uses a set of HSL parameters that are a) not optimal and b) disconnected from the content of the image. It does work as the conversion for dummies method, but that's about it.

Thank you all very much. There's a lot of information here already for getting started. Sounds like CS2 is the way to go regardless of the "rendering process" chosen. And it seems to be a consensus that the raw file is the file to work with, so any of the recognized names in the DSLR game will be fine. I hadn't even thought of a printer as I've thus far just taken my final color decisions on a CD to a photo lab and requested prints without changes, which has worked out most of the time. Thank you again.

I use "Convert to BW Pro" (a plug-in from Image Factory, I think). It allows a lot of control.

 

Thre are other products, or ways of doing it, from Lightroom, or so I gather. But I don't know how different they are from the traditional Photoshop.

 

There are a few threads around saying that the B&W mode from the Ricoh GRD is quite good. I have the GRD, but I haven't tried it yet. This is to say that it is worth experimenting with your camera's B&W mode, after all, you may like the results.

There are several good solutions to printing (Epson R200 + BO print workflow, other printers

and quadtone inks + QuadToneRIP driver, HP printers which support a grayscale inkset, etc)

but if you have the money for it, an Epson R2400 produces superb quality B&W prints straight

out of the box with little effort.

 

It's what I use for all my photo printing now, both B&W and color. It makes getting an

exhibition grade print easy.

 

Godfrey

Well, my background in b/w, like many arises from the dark room wet lab. What I've

brought from that is, hopefully some understanding about tonality, contrast and a

relationship between the initial exposure through developement and onto the print. In

digital, I'm getting decent b/w. I've found the results I like best so far is to shoot in raw

and convert from color to b/w in CS2. Raw lets me control the basic tonality/exposure

etc. I seldom do b/w using the straight desaturation. I will sometimes convert in channel

mixer, or use a gradiant adjustment layer and various playing around with blending modes

levels curves etc . In other words a print specific treatment just like in the darkroom. I

also am enjoying using programs like Nic filters. I find by using the presets and altering

them, and then doing additional adjustments I can really get a nice tri-x look and also a

pushed look, with pretty good looking grain. You might want to check it out.

 

For printing, I often use the Clayton Jones B/only method or the QTR rip which also is very

good and somewhat easy on an Epson 2200. I like Velvet fine art, and Hawk Mountain

Condor though I probably should try some others. Profiling, calibration all that stuff that

literally fills volumes is all involved. I don't know about elements, I've always had PS. I

use the D200 and it has a quite usable b/w, but I seldom use it prefering the choice with

raw. Shooting raw and digital means you have great flexibility regarding color and b/w.

Really there's no simple answer.

 

Elements could work for you as long as it allows you to get results and push your skills

and techniques farther. When it doesn't than get PS. But if you're really into it, I think you

will probably end up with PS. Have fun.

Additional comment, I would agree strongly with those that say to not use desaturation as

the method. You don't have any control of the result in the change over at all. There's a lot

of ways to convert, but virtually every book or instructor will warn you away from straight

desaturation. It may look good now and then, but it generally will never be your optimal

image.

Black and white film has a different response to various wavelengths of light than color film. Color film is uniform across the spectrum to the best approximation, whereas B&W film, Tri-X for example, is nearly twice as sensitive to blue light as to red or green. If you simply desaturate, skin tones turn out much darker and flatter than with B&W film. Landscapes, especially foliage, look muddy. You simply don't know what you're going to get if you do the conversion in-camera, and have no way to fix things in post.

 

B&W also has a unique grain structure, quite different from the dye clouds in color film, with various colors overlapping. There's not much you can do in Photoshop about the grain, but color response is another matter.

 

You can start by using the Channel Mixer tool, set to monochrome, with the blue channel set to 50 and the red and green channels to 25 (the channels should total 100). You can play around with the balance for different effects, and you can emulate the use of contrast filters. While powerful and parametric (reproducible), channel mixer is highly subjective. Various third-party plug-ins use parameters more familiar to B&W photographers. I use SilverOxide Tri-X, but there are others out there. As with anything else, you get what you pay for.

If you do a fair amount of printing, it's cheaper to buy an Epson 4800 over the 2400. As Paul Butzi wrote on Mike Johnston's website: <p>

 

<small> <i><blockquote>

Right now, the street price for an R2400 delivered to my door is about $780. The street price for the 4800 is quite a bit more -- $1800 delivered to my door. At first blush, the R2400 looks a lot cheaper. The trick is that in the box with the 4800, there's a set of 110ml ink cartridges. To really level the price, we need to add in ink cartridges to the R2400, so that we're buying the printer and the same amount of ink in each case. Ink cartridges for the R2400 would run me $13 apiece, and they have a capacity of about 11ml of usable ink. So we need to add in 9 cartridges, in each of the 8 colors we�re going to use. Nine cartridges, 8 colors, $13 a pop -- that means we're buying $936 in ink, just to get up to the 110ml level we�d get with the 4800. That brings the total cost for the R2400 up to $1,716, so that the R2400 costs us just $84 less than the 4800. Eighty-four dollars isn't a whole lot to get a printer that�s built to pro standards, can print wider, and has the self-calibration features of the 4800. <p>

 

But wait! There's more! <br>

There's more. The 4800 can also use 220ml ink cartridges, which really cut the cost of ink. A 220ml cartridge costs $84, or 38 cents per ml. Compare that to the cost for the little cartridges for the R2400, which run $1.18 per ml -- more expensive by a factor of three.

<p>

 

If you compare the cost of running the two printers until you've run an additional full set of 220ml cartridges through the 4800, and 20 sets of 11ml cartridges through the R2400, the additional ink cost will be $672 for the 4800 and $2,080 for the R2400. Total cost for the R2400 to this point is $3,796, and total cost for the 4800 is $2,472...a difference of $1,324 in favor of the "more expensive" Stylus Pro 4800.

</blockquote> </i> </small> <p>

 

The only error in Butzi's math is that the 4800 does not ship with full tanks of ink.

<center>

<img src="http://www.gdgphoto.com/traveler/source/image/01-3230.jpg"><br>

<b>At The Tate #21 :: South Bank, London 2005</b><br>

<i>© 2006 by Godfrey DiGiorgi, All Rights Reserved<br>

made with Pentax *ist DS equipment</i><br>

</center><br>

 

<i>

... "If you do a fair amount of printing, it's cheaper to buy an Epson 4800 over the

2400." ...

</i><br><br>

I agree with that 100%. However, the initial investment cost of the R4800 plus it's much

larger size was something I wasn't ready to spring for when I bought the R2400. My

current standard size print is made to an A3 paper size. I find I turn over a full set of

cartridges after about 70-100 prints, more or less, so my ink cost per print is around $1

each. That's reasonable for my current printing volume.

<br><br>

I will without question move up to the R4800 or whatever successor might replace it

sometime within the next year because I see my standard size print moving up to 16x20

in that time period. But if you normally print 13x19 or smaller sizing, the discriminator on

ink cost vs space and initial price will happen only with relatively large volumes of prints.

<br><br>

Godfrey

You are mistaken if you think CS2 is the only solution, there is Paint Shop Pro waiting for you to use it and RAW converters independant of Adobe.

I know that people are refilling cartridges with genuine Epson K3 inks from the 220ml cartridges precisely because of the cost difference.

 

I am not sure that Epson remains the leader in printers. Both HP and Canon are currently offering superb pigment ink printers at price points clearly aimed at knocking Epson off its pedestal.

 

If your sole interest in B&W then one of the third party inksets in a used printer is probably the way to go. I second those who recommend a RIP. ImagePrint is very expensive for an amateur so give Harrington's QuadTone RIP (QTR) a trial first.

 

The 20D B&W mode is basically a gimmick. If you shoot RAW to then you can use the B&W mode to get a B&W preview which might be helpful to visualize tonality.

 

I don't know enough about Elements to say whether it is powerful enough or not.

<i><blockquote> I am not sure that Epson remains the leader in printers.

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

In black and white -- which this particular discussion thread is about -- Epson still leads the pack.