Black and white photography

<p>I have the Canon T2i and a couple of good quality lenses. I'm going to Paris, where I've been before, and this time want to concentrate on black and white photography. I have not done much black and white photography with a digital camera (though in the era of film, I did a lot). Anything I need to keep in mind? What about white balance? Are there any features of the T2i that may be especially useful with black and white? (I normally use camera raw and take highest resolution photos, then process them in Photoshop.) <br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>You have a good process; keep color images, and convert them to grayscale in PS, where you can vary the ratios of different colors in the gray conversion to give you different looks...allowing the camera or the software to give you a default B&W image will not likely be as good. For example, taking more from the blue channel will give you darker, more contrasty skin, whereas the red channel will make it lighter. Play with the numbers and see what you like. They don't have to add up to 100%, either...you can go higher or lower as you like.</p>

<p>Since you have experience shooting B&W film, much of the same applies to digital, as far as contrast and such. The nice thing about digital is that you aren't dependent of filters to change effects so much; you can do that in post with the balance of channel inputs.</p>

<p>As far as white balance, If you're shooting raw, that won't matter anyway. I would think for contrast reasons, though, you'll want to adjust it properly before converting to grayscale.</p>

<p>I personally prefer film for B&W, but I don't always have a film camera handy when something that will render well in B&W is there for me to shoot.</p>

<p>Think of it sort of this way. With BW film you had to put a decent BW image on your BW film. This meant "seeing" in BW and using filters at the time of the exposure. With digital, you essentially bring the color scene back with you in camera, and the conversion actually doesn't take place until you do your post processing work, thus giving you a great deal more control and flexibility than you would have had with film.</p>

<p>Shoot raw and do not simply rely on the camera's supposed black and white mode. Beyond that expose much as you would for color. Avoid blowing out the highlights. Use the histogram. In general, expose to the right - unless there is a lot of scene detail that is in the very bright tones in which you might want to underexpose just a tiny bit.</p>

<p>And don't give up on the notion that you might decide that some of your images actually look better in color.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<blockquote>

<p>In general, expose to the right </p>

</blockquote>

<p>In general, this only applies if you want certain types of images. I never do it, with work work and with my own personal stuff. Hasn't affected my ability to get more work or to get photos I like.</p>

<p>For best results you need the full copy of ACR (i.e. CS5 not Elements). You can simulate the effects of filters reasonably well (although real filters are still better) but getting off the presets takes some practice. The dynamic range of a DSLR does not seem to be as high as with a B&W film so you may want to bracket some shots. You can also selectively adjust the image in post using layers. I personally still find that I get the best B&W results from an all film / wet process but the digital images and printing is getting better. The latest printers and papers do a reasonable job with B&W (I use the Epson 2880).</p>

In general I just shoot the monochrome picture style with +2 contrast and a little added sharpness. That way the

preview looks like my intended result most of the times. Plus when I edit the RAW in Canon's DPP it starts out with

the right settings so my workflow is shortened.

 

Using these settings I get complimented on my tones quite often. (I use those settings for my old rebel and for my

modern FF so they should work fine with your model.)

 

As my workflow differs from yours it might not work for you, just experiment I'd say.

 

Hope this helps, Matthijs.

<p>I shoot normally then in ACR convert to greyscale. It's much easier than changing filters. However, I do miss the wet darkroom. PS dodge and burn is not quite as easy as a wet darkroom.</p>

<p>I agree with above posters: shoot RAW and convert later - it's the BEST way of doing it and will always allow you to keep the color images as well.<br>

Having done traditional B&W work for many, many years my goal is not to imitate digitally what I was doing in a wet darkroom but, rather to continue making images (prints) that I like. Clearly, taste is a subjective thing and each person will arrive at different conclusions but, if you start RAW you can always experiment with different techniques and processes for converting images to your liking.<br>

I have a certain method I like to use, which you can read about it <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/canoneosusers/black-white-conversion">here</a>, if you are interested. But there is a lot written on the subject, here on this very forum :)</p>

<p>Regarding "expose to the right," a poster replied:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"In general, this only applies if you want certain types of images. I never do it, with work work and with my own personal stuff. Hasn't affected my ability to get more work or to get photos I like."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>"In general," this applies to the vast majority of digital capture. There are liabilities to underexposing and to over-exposing with digital capture, so the issue becomes how to maintain the best balance between the two:</p>

<ul>

<li>Over-exposure leads to blown out highlights when one or more color channels end up with a maximum luminosity value and can therefore record no variations in the image there. All detail is lost in these areas, at least in the affected color channel, and it is difficult to (more likely) impossible to get it back. In general, this is a Very Bad Thing, though there are exceptions. For example, in some cases small specular highlights such as those created by sparkling water, can be allowed to blow out as longs as they are small and handled carefully.</li>

<li>Under-exposure of areas of the image in digital capture can lead to a couple of problems. First, the lower levels of luminosity are represented by a smaller range of values in the capture data. For this reason, if any adjustments to bring back shadow detail are done in post there is the risk of introducing banding or similar artifacts. Second, image data for very low luminosity areas is not far above the noise floor of the camera, so the signal to noise ratio becomes small - and again, adjustments in post to open shadows can also increase noise in the print. </li>

</ul>

<p>Note that both of these issues are more significant if you shoot jogs, though they are not insignificant even if you shoot raw.</p>

<p>There are exceptions to every "rule," and note that I noted this both generally and specifically in my post. For example, I pointed out that for subjects that are very high key and which depend on differentiating among subtle variations in light tones it may make sense to under-expose slightly.</p>

<p>Finally, some misinterpret "expose to the right" to mean making the photograph unnaturally bright. Ultimately this isn't the goal at all. The idea is to capture as much image data as possible without losing data at the low end to background noise or at the high end to blown out highlights. This image in the initial raw file may not look like the scene looked, but it holds all of the scene data that allows the photographer to create the best interpretation of the scene in post. This concept, though done with digital media here, is nothing new - it is the same approach that led film photographers to use things like the zone system and to manipulate exposure and developing to hold image detail in the negative that would permit the best print to be created in darkroom post.</p>

<p>Take care,</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>OK, not quite "finally." With the most recent generation of inkjet printers and with skillful work in post, it is now possible to create truly beautiful black and white prints entirely within the digital workflow. As was the case with film-based black and white work, practice and understanding the process are both necessary in order to produce the best possible output quality.</p>

<p>Some people may be able to make a living in digital photography without "exposing to the right", but the simple fact is that if you want to maximize the dynamic range of a digital image you will expose to the right of the histogram without blowing out highlights. This gives you the most flexibility in RAW conversion and PP and preserves the most shadow detail. It's one of the BIG differences between digital and film.</p>

<p>Of course, the unprocessed RAW conversion will look washed out, but you simply pull the levels down where you like, adjust contrast, etc. to taste. You've got more data to work with when you "expose right."</p>

<p>Regarding digital B&W, as suggested, start with a RAW color image, then convert with your favorite RAW conversion software and then convert to B&W. Play with the filters that your software allows and also play with the RGB curve to see how it changes the resultant B&W image, much like filters. I use DxO Optics Pro for RAW conversion and DxO's FilmPack for B&W, chosing from about 20 classic B&W film looks.</p>

<p>Another vote for shooting in RAW<br /> and then you can pound, pummel, and otherwise filter in post-processing to get to a whole range of B&W images, not just the one de-saturated image in the camera. The later versions of Photoshop have great flexibility in this regard.<br>

<br /> The price of ritual purity (recording the actual in-camera image in B&W) is pretty high to pay for letting the camera make the choices instead of doing so yourself later.</p>

<p>Ahhh! Digital processes for B&W are better than with film and darkroom printing. I do miss seeing an image emerge out of a white sheet of paper but there is little set up and clean up with digital printing. </p>

<p>Didn't someone say the RAW file is the score but the print is the performance? All the prior advice is spot on. Make the file by shooting RAW, Adobe RGB, low ISO, and Expose to the Right. </p>

<p>File processing requires Photoshop CS4 or CS5 with the Adobe RAW Converter (or some product like the DxO's mentioned above.) You can use Canon's Digital Photo Professional to duplicate everything that the T2i will do itself by making B&W JPEGS - not much action there. </p>

<p>Open in ARC, process a color image, toggle to the HSL/Grayscale tool window, check the box to "Convert to Grayscale," play with the color sliders. The file remains a color file but looks B&W on the screen. The sliders lighten or darken indicated colors. A bit of color theory is useful to understand what is happening to get your desired effect. You can do some creative stuff with the lens or effects tools in ARC. Then open to Photoshop. Play with curves.</p>

<p>Printing yourself requires a good, up-to-date pigment ink printer to get neutral, clean B&W images. I think the Canons and the Epsons are the best. I use a Canon 9500 MKII - outstanding B&W. There is some technique to place your whitest, white and blackest, black for your paper and ink combination. You can get some really cool papers that are like traditional fibre or baryta papers. I like Moab's Colorado Gloss. Canon makes a great Rag. Take a course in printing. That's the most difficult part of the equation for B&W.</p>

<p>Doug, your approach to doing the BW conversion works, but it sounds like the old school method that was required back in CS3. Today the more typical starting place is with the black and white layer, with its list of virtual filters, followed by work with levels and so forth.</p>

<p>(Or maybe you are making a reference that I'm missing when you mention something called "ARC.")</p>

<p>The quote you paraphrase, of course, came from Ansel Adams who compared the negative to the score and the print to the performance. Making this analogy even more interesting in his case, was his extensive background as a performing musician.</p>

<p>The rough outlines of my BW workflow include:</p>

<ol>

<li>RAW conversion in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW), keeping the file in full color and working primarily to avoid losing data at the dark or bright ends of the spectrum.</li>

<li>Bring the converted file into CS5 as a 16-bit smart layer in the ProPhoto color space.</li>

<li>Do initial sharpening non-destructively on the smart layer and make any needed adjustments the same way using the shadow/highlight tool.</li>

<li>Apply the black and white layer, perhaps selecting one of the filter presets that comes closest to the ideal base image.</li>

<li>Using masked layers to make fine adjustments to portions of the image, essentially making localized contrast adjustments. (The think Ansel could not do...)</li>

</ol>

<p>There is, of course, more to it than this, but this process can lead to very fine BW inkjet prints with one of the better current printers.</p>

<p>Don't know about your T2i, but on my 5D when I set it to store both the RAW and the JPG files and shoot in B&W mode, only the JPGs get converted to B&W. The RAW image is ... well ... RAW (i.e. in color). The image review is done in B&W which I find nice.</p>

<p>Take a couple of test shots with your camera. If the JPG is B&W and the RAW is in color when you set the camera to monochrome mode, you should be fine shooting in monochrome mode. But if by setting the camera to B&W you lose all color information for good, I'd shoot RAW in color and convert to B&W in post-processing.</p>

<p>~Tom</p>

<p>One of my least favorite forms of forum behavior is the personal message sent by a forum participant upbraiding another discussion participant for perceived misbehavior and then letting said recipient know that his/her knowledge is insufficient and why, typically accompanied by personal insults and implications.</p>

<p>I will not play that game via personal messaging. If someone sends me such a message related to a public forum post, the message becomes part of the discussion.</p>

<p>A personal message received recently from a participant in this discussion thread:</p>

<p><em>Unfortunately, Dan, I found your comment addressing me as incredibly snarky. </em><br /> <em>I don't engage in flame wars on other peoples' posts. But I will take you on directly.</em><br /> <em>The proper name of ACR/ARC is "Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw," so the proper acronym for that should be "APCR." I have seen this plug in referred to as "Adobe Camera Raw" or sometimes "Adobe Raw Converter."</em><br /> <em>Yes, in my post, I was referring to Ansel Adams - perhaps a a reference bit too wry and too obscure for you. </em><br /> <em>Ansel was an interesting guy. Read the making of Moonrise by Ansel in "Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs." As you are an aficionado of ETTR, you should appreciate that Moonrise was exposed for the luminance of the moon - essentially ETTR. As with ETTR, it's washed out and overly bright.</em><br /> <em>Ansel treated portions of the negative with an intensifier to bring up the foreground contrast. Of course the negative on a straight print is awful and muddy. So the best of the Moonrise prints are carefully burned and dodged to adjust local contrast. Which Ansel was quite good at doing. Ansel was also quite capable of making bad Moonrise prints.</em><br /> <em>Your layer technique is interesting, but no more superior than using APCR. The virtual filters in your layer technique are just toys compared to really separating tones using the sliders to create your own interpretation. Yes, there are ways of using layers to change local contrast.</em><br /> <em>As I recall, the APCR for CS3 and below did not have the capability of grayscale conversion that were incorporated in CS4 and CS5, but I could be wrong because I worked in a darkroom until I took Paul Schranz's class in digital B&W. Before that time, to me, digital B&W was crappy.</em><br /> <em>Now, how many of your mistakes and typos from your posts do you want me to point out?</em><br /> <em>From now on, keep your snark out of references addressing me.</em><br /> <em>[name suppressed]</em></p>

<p>The message to which this person was apparently responding is found a few higher on this page. Judge for yourself whether or not the accusation of "snarkiness" has legs, and then where my original post and the personal message follow up might be positioned on the snarkiness scale.</p>

<p>My final response via private messaging to the sender was as follows:</p>

<p><em>[Name supressed], if you have comments on my public posts, I would appreciate it if you make them in the same public place where I posted them.</em><br /> <em>For the record, I met Ansel though I never worked with him. I shoot with friends who worked under his tutelage. </em><br /> <em>I really don't need your personal lecture, and I find your characterization of my post as "snarky" to be particularly ironic.</em><br /> <em>Beyond that I'm not taking the bait.</em></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Philip wrote, regarding filters in post: "You can simulate the effects of filters reasonably well (although real filters are still better)"</p>

<p>I think that it isn't quite that simple. </p>

<p>Sometimes the physical filters can be necessary. For example, there really isn't a good way to recreate the full range of useful effects from a polarizing filter in post. And if you use non-graduated neutral density filters to permit longer shutter speeds and/or larger apertures, there isn't a good way to do that in post either.</p>

<p>The situation is certainly more complex when it comes to the use of color filters for black and white and to the use of graduated neutral density filters.</p>

<p>Regarding color filters, there are some very powerful things that you can do in post that you cannot realistically do in the field with physical filters. For one thing you can almost continuously vary the intensity of the filter effect in post in several ways, including by adding the filtering via a layer whose opacity can be adjusted from 0% to 100%. If you have one physical, let's say, red filter on your camera, it has some specific effect. But if you apply the analogous red filtering effect in post you can subtly control its intensity.</p>

<p>For another, you can fairly easily apply the filtering to less than the whole image. I have certainly had occasion to, for example, apply a red or yellow virtual filter to the sky in post, while not doing the same on the foreground. Even more, you can apply different filters to different portions of the scene. To make up an example, you might find it interesting to apply a blue filter to a foreground that was in shade and a red filter to a cloud-filled sky, while neither filter alone might be ideal for the entire image.</p>

<p>Regarding graduated neutral density filters, there are a range of views. Some prefer the immediacy of using these filters in the field and don't find that carrying or using them encumbers them significantly. Others, and I count myself among them, would rather make two (or occasionally more) exposures of wide dynamic range scenes, optimized for different parts of the scene, and combine them in post. There factors at the time of exposure that affect this decision, but there are also some important potential advantages do doing this in post. For example:</p>

<ul>

<li>The photographer has greater control over the boundary between the dark and light source areas of the image. Rather than being fixed linear division of possibly varying width, the division can be created using a mask in post so that it follows the best contours of the scene. (Imagine a shot from just within a very steep v-shaped canyon, where the canyon walls are deeply shaded and the area beyond is in very bright sunlight.)</li>

<li>It isn't necessary to divide the image into two contiguous exposure zones - you can have as many as you want. (Imagine a shot with a backlit thick tree in the center of the frame and bright background beyond it on both sides. A central strip for the tree can come from the exposure for shadows and two side areas can come from the exposure for bright areas.)</li>

<li>Areas of the image can combine contributions from both exposures. For example, if I have an area where the shadows are blocked in the "bright" capture, I might introduce perhaps 50% opacity from the underlying shadow exposed area to subtly suggest a bit of shadow detail but not too much.</li>

</ul>

<p>There are others as well.</p>

<p>In the end, there are situations in which physical filters can be the only realistic solution, but there are also situations in which the technical and expressive advantages of working in post are compelling.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>One of the most objectionable aspects of forums like this is the public "flame war." I refuse to participate in such childishness. Here was my additional private reply to G Dan Mitchell after which Mr. Mitchell was motivated to make his public post above:<br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>Dan, I too have worked with one person who worked for Ansel although I never had the opportunity to meet him. Your "for the record" phraseology is quite condescending. I find your characterization of "irony" a bad use of language - it's the wrong word. I meant exactly what I conveyed to you in my message to you. You had a choice of how to reply to my message to you - or not. I understand your reply and the nature of your character denoted by your reply. Just keep the snark out of any public message that replies to me and go on your way. I expect no further reply. Doug</em><br>

<br>

Yes, do judge for yourself. Dan, please do not seek to engage in any public or private discussion with me. I will neither read nor respond to any posting from you, public or private. Note: Dan bit bait and hook planted in Dan. Now be an adult.</p>

<p>No flame wars from me, public <strong><em>or private</em></strong>. I'm done.</p>