Difference btw shooting color and converting to b&w and shooting b&w

[tony_black1]

What is the difference btw shooting color film and then converting it to b&w in

photoshop versus shooting b&w?

 

In the first case, you have 2 options. Color and b&w.

 

?

[pico]

If your only objective is a digital print or web presentation, then photoshop is good because it lets you muck about with hues after the fact: you can apply filters, curves to color channels, and so-forth.

 

But 35mm color film scanned and then made into B&W has some shortcomings but we don't have to get into it.

[bruce_watson1]

<i>What is the difference btw shooting color film and then converting it to b&w in photoshop versus shooting b&w?</i>

<p>

It's the difference between hoping and planning.

[geoffs1]

There might be some (subtle) differences in the spectral response of a particular B&W film vs. the spectral response of the color film combined with the reg, green, and blue filters in the scanner. An extreme example would be IR-sensitive B&W film - it's not possible to recreate the appearance using RGB mixing because the information isn't present in the color image.

[randall ellis]

I don't do any scanning or converting so there may be something that I'm missing, but to me, the difference is great. With black and white film you can control a great deal of factors affecting what is recorded while with color film the control is quite a bit less. Altering the expsoure and development and choosing different developers with black and white film allows for all of these adjustments, while color film development is fixed for the most part. As with anything, you can only work with what has been recorded, so by altering the contrast range to suit the subject contrast range, black and white film allows you to record what you want, while color film is less flexible.

 

That is not to say that it won't produce good results, just that it is not as flexible as black and white film. Now, if you are going to have a lab develop your film, you might as well work with color since you loose a lot of that control by letting someone else develop for you.

 

- Randy

[wigwam jones]

What Bruce said.

 

When I go out with B&W film in my camera, I am thinking about taking B&W photographs. And that is what I 'see' before me. I think in terms of textures, light & shadow, striking lines and compositions.

 

When I go out with color film in my camera, I am looking for color photographs. Very different mindset. Very often in these cases, the color tells the story - without it, the photograph would have little meaning.

 

That does not mean that from time to time, I don't try a color photograph desaturated or otherwise dropped down to monochrome just to see how it looks, and from time to time, I like it. But those cases are more accidental than planned - back to what Bruce said so elegantly.

[tony_black1]

other than hoping and planning, there is not much technical difference in the final image in terms of tonality, contrast etc. then.

[colin turner]

And therewith Wigwam has elegantly summarised emotional photographic intent.

[richam]

Bruce and Wigwam -- hear! hear! I've taken very few color photos that made good B&W

images. The best B&W have always been B&W from the start. It's a mindset issue, not a

technical one. I forget the Wratten designation, but Ansel Adams recommended some sort

of a sepia filter to look through that reduced a color scene to relative light intensity values.

This was intended as a training device for the novice and could be dispensed with once the

skill of perceiving scenes in terms of grayscale values was developed. If you snap away with

a modern digital camera without pre-visualing what you are after, you are likely to be

disappointed with either the B&W or the color versions of your images.

[al_kaplan1]

One other big advantage to shooting conventional old fashioned silver based B&W negative film is that the stuff lasts about forever and still yields great prints long after those color negatives are faded to hell. I shot these photos http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=008vli over forty years ago and made the prints from which these scans were made in 2004.

[mendel_leisk]

I shot a lot of home processed black and white over the years. It's more stable over the longterm, compared to color. And shooting black and white makes your decision, you've commited.

 

That said, I think it's a very smart strategy to shoot color for b/w. You leave your options open, can replicate b/w filters, etc.

 

That's how it's done with digital single lens reflex and raw format output. If your aim is black and white, you still start in color. Why throw the option away?

[al_kaplan1]

"Throwing away the option" can be throwing out the baby with the bath water. Once the market made the big shift to color nobody seemed to care anymore about archiveability. Today, with digital, long term storage has become even more iffy. We all know people who've "freed up space" on a film card only to discover that they'd deleted THE important picture from a shoot. You never know which images will become valuable. All the people who switched to color negative, and more recently to digital, will just enhance the value of the few B&W images in the future. Even on a color shoot I always get some B&W film negatives, and I catalog and save everything.

[gene_e._mccluney]

There are several differences. One. Color negative (or transparency) film is not an archival

medium in the same league with properly processed b/w film. If you want your negatives

to outlast you, then your only option is to shoot black and white film. Two. The response

of color film to light is somewhat different than b/w film, and a b/w conversion of a color

negative will not look the same as a b/w original. Whether this matters to you or not, is a

matter of personal taste. For me, I like the "look" of a b/w original better. Three. Grain.

Color film does not have the same grain patterns of b/w film. B/W film has (in my opinion}

a nicer grain pattern..in images where grain is visible. Fourth..Zone System, BTZS, and

other ways of placing an image brightness range within the capture range of film, and

custom developing it to retain all of that range is not a technique that can be used with

color film. Color film can only be "custom" processed to a very limited extent.

[asher]

Like Wigwam and Bruce described, it has to do with visualization: foreseeing the final print

values before you've tripped the shutter.<p>

 

Read Ansel Adams "The Negative" and "The Print", and try it yourself to really get it.

[doremus_scudder1]

Tony,

 

The answers so far seem to overlook one of the main differences between shooting black-and-white and shooting color: With black-and-white film one has the option of using a variety of colored filters to control tonalities and contrast, and there are many more development options for contrast control as well. While it is possible to do some of this in photoshop, I don't think the results look the same, nor are they as easy to achieve (screwing on a filter takes very little time). Sometimes the digital approach is far more complicated. Just try making a little pencil drawing and then try to replicate it in photoshop or any other drawing program you might have...

 

Best,

 

www.DoremusScudder.com

[tony_black1]

can you guys tell the difference of a b&w print and a color converted to b&w print ?

[bob_the_builder1]

Easy, real black and white looks great but images converted from colour in photoshop do

not.

[w_t1]

What Pico, Bruce, Al, and others have said. Plus, the black and white darkroom is my "connection" to my grandfather's era who is long gone...same technology as he had....well except maybe for my RH2 vc head lol. But hey I'm an oddball in this day and age, i like single shot rifles and revolvers, old vehicles, and even use a hand saw.

[bruce_watson1]

<i>Can you guys tell the difference of a b&w print and a color converted to b&w print?</i>

<p>

OK, OK. Just for you.

<p>

For a given ISO rating (lest there be arguments, lets repeat that: FOR A GIVEN ISO RATING), color negative film exhibits more graininess than B&W negative because it has more image forming layers, and the graininess adds. For similar reasons, color negative films tend to exhibit less sharpness than their B&W counterparts. With negative films (non-scientific testing here) it seems to me to be worth about a stop. That is, a 160 ISO color negative film has similar graininess and sharpness characteristics when compared to a 320 ISO B&W film.

<p>

While color negative film has a similar ability to capture large subject brightness ranges (SBR) as B&W film, color postitive films have considerably less. So using slide film for capture for a B&W image can only be done successfully in limited SBRs.

<p>

The spectral response is different too. Color films tend to be more linear than their B&W counterparts. Photographers tend to attach aesthetic meaning to those peaks and valleys in the B&W response curves.

[greg_winterflood]

Tony, I've been following this thread over the past 24 hours. I dabbled in this dark art about 25 years ago when I thought I knew everything about everything. Now I know nothing about everything. It seems to me that you need to shoot some B&W and some Colour, and compare the difference, for yourself. But,hey,the physics/chemistry/aesthetic discussion you have generated has been great!

 

As a 59 year old Recidivist Beginner I'm learning heaps.

 

Can you stir up something else?

[greg_winterflood]

WT - the idea of a Single Shot Revolver doesn't make a lot of sense!

 

Sorry, I used to be a School Teacher.

 

"Single shot rifles, revolvers..." et cetera seems to have a more aesthetic feeling.

 

Greg - The Horrible ;-)

[tony_black1]

thanks a lot for the feedback. i will shoot some b&w and try to see the difference. thanks again.

[photo5]

Color converted to black and white.<div></div>

[photo5]

Here is the color original

[photo5]

try it again<div></div>