I Need Help With Digital Black-and-White

After many,many years of shooting almost exclusively in B&W with rangefinder

cameras, I finally went all digital in January of this year. I now shoot a

Nikon D2H and D1x and I am loving the freedom digital offers. However, I

still love B&W and I am having a hard time getting really good quality B&W

from my digital work. The only software I have is PS Elements 2. And my

skills at post processing are okay, they are getting better day by day, but I

am by no means an expert in the digital darkroom. I am not so much concerned

about grain as I am about tonality in my B&W stuff. Any tips as to how I can

improve my B&W stuff would be much appreciated. Brad, if you see this, I have

seen your B&W work and it is excellent- but tips from anyone out there would

really help me a lot. Thanks to everyone in advance who answers, Rick.

I have a couple of methods for PSE on this page

http://www.escrappers.com/gray.html

 

and a method to duplicate the feel of the channel mixer in PSE

http://www.escrappers.com/graypse.html

 

Enjoy!

I get the best B&W by using ACR 3.4 (for PsCS2) and using the desaturate slider on the adjust

tab and then the individual R, G & B hue and saturation sliders in the Calibrate tab.

Any of these books have extensive BW processing.<br>

 

1. Deke McClelland's

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/0596100965&link_code=as2&camp=1789&tag=itemsforsale-20&creative=9325">Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=itemsforsale-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0596100965" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br>

2. Martin Evening's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/0240519841&link_code=as2&camp=1789&tag=itemsforsale-20&creative=9325">Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=itemsforsale-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0240519841" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br>

 

3. Scott Kelby's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/0321330625&link_code=as2&camp=1789&tag=itemsforsale-20&creative=9325">The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=itemsforsale-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0321330625" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

The free Channel Mixer plug-in available here does a fine job: they also have some other escellent freebies for PSE2. http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/photoshop-elements-curves.html

I do a lot of digital black and white work as well. The thing to do is research four or five different methods of converting your pictures and memorize them. It's almost like creating a little toolbox. And you have to do it that way because different photos respond differently to different methods.

 

That said, I'm currently working a lot with Tri-X because it's just different than converted digital photos. It's not that I like it better, but it's different.

 

Good luck.

Also check out Clayton Jones website: http://cjcom.net/, the Yahoo B&W forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages and Greg Gorman technique: http://www.gormanphotography.com/bw_conversion.pdf

 

Paul

<I> Brad, if you see this, I have seen your B&W work and it is excellent-</i><P>

 

Thanks! (I hope I'm the Brad you're referring too...)<P>

 

I've used photoshop's Gradient Map for a lont time, but about a year ago went with the

Imaging Factory's Convert to B&W Pro. The first method is free, the second is a ps pluggin

that costs $100.

 

The advantage of Convert to B&W Pro, is from a single real-time view window, you can

apply input color filtration, set film sensitivity emulation, set exposure, and then tone the

output.<P>

 

The ability to apply input color filtration is a neat feature. Works well if you have a

particular color in your image that dominates - which you can then knock down through

filtration. Or if you have an object with color you want to emphasize in the B&W conversion

process. Having all of these adjustments interactive and with a real-time view is a huge

benefit.<P>

 

Sometimes I aslo add film grain from a scanned piece of tri-x. And then play with

photoshop's blending modes to play with the contrast.<P>

 

I still like the Gradient Map method for some images though - it's really quick to use and

gives nice results...

I tried a half dozen different ways of doing color to B&W conversion so far...was kinda set on one of the above methods......until I figured out how to convert it in RAW. The first thing is to desaturate it usint the saturate slider under the adjust tab as Ellis indicates, but then i use all the other settings under that (including the color and tint controls....which Eric~ turned me onto being a major factor in the "look" of the conversion), plus the custom curve settings under the curve tab (which I just personally like for tweaking tones in any image...color or b&w), and also the settings under calibrate tab....which act a lot like the color contrast filters on camera for B&W film). It's all viewed real time, the fine control is awesome, you can easily change things and try different combinations....and if you had already gotten use to the RAW controls as I was with color, they are pretty intuitive when using them for b&w as to which ones needs more tweeaking or backing off (at least for me).

 

Two things I don't do all the time is adding grain and toning, but if I do..........I also use real film grain from a file of Tri-X film I scanned. And for toning I prefer Duotones and split toning in Photoshop later.

 

On a side note.....I just watched the Adobe Lightroom video....the second one......and although they didn't get into it in that one....I could see on the tools panel for RAW that it had duotones and possibly some other type of toning built into it............YES! Now, if it has a decent Sharpeneing (like smart sharpen in cs2).......heck I may not need anything but lightroom and raw.

I want to thank everyone for their help. Also, you guys helped on what was to be my next post about grain. I've tried PS grain and found it lacking. So I will try scanning in a piece of film and see what happens. I shot Tri-X for 25 years. For about the last 5 years I had been shooting Fuji Neopan 400 which is very similar to Tri-X. Everyone has helped so much that I can't wait to give all of this a try and see what happens with my B&W stuff. I have the next few days off work and I plan on experimenting and see what I get.

 

I was one of those die-hard guys that said he would never go digital, etc, etc.... Once I got a decent DSLR and some good glass and learned a few basic things in post processing- it was like having a veil removed from my eyes. But then, I started missing the B&W film look. So much that I actually comtemplated buying another film camera just to shoot B&W, develop the film and then scan it in. And then I thought, there has to be a way to get decent B&W from digital- I'm just not doing it right. After a long hard look, I thought, man I don't want to go back to film. My computer skills and post processing skills are really poor, but I'm getting better day by day and having much more fun than I thought I would. Thanks once again to everyone who replied, Rick.

Does anyone have any reader comments on George DeWolfe's "Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop", which I saw on amazon.com ?

There is also another great plugin from Alien Skin called "Exposure" which simulates colors, tones, density and grain from everone's favorite films.

"I have a couple of methods for PSE on this page http://www.escrappers.com/gray.html"

 

Search for Russel Brown's tutorial on black and white conversions. The abbreviated version in the above link leaves a lot to be desired. Basically, don't try to change the hue. Instead, change the lightness slider for each of the color groups. (Don't leave it on master in the dropdown. Select each color and change the lightness if desired.) Gives far more control. Changing the hue for everything at once is more of a shotgun approach that may or may not give you the look you want.

 

 

Eric