How to get grayscale file directly ?

[herve_laurent]

Hello everyone,

I have been a photographer for over 20 years but only started shooting digital recently. All my work is

B&W. I used to select my best negs, have them scanned at high res and print on 20"X20 heavyweight Fuji

paper. Last week , i brought to to the lab my first digital files from my Pentax K10D to be printed directly.

The results are just so-so. The guy who prints all my work told me it is because I give him a RAW file (with

color info). He said I should shoot directly in grayscale mode and that it would be better to get a JPEG file

even.

To ensure better quality I have shooted on the K10D RAW(DNG)+JPEG. when I do that there is of course

color info on the RAW. BUT more problematic, there does not seem to be any way to set the camera in

B&W JPEG, even If I shoot JPEG only. AM I right or am I missing something. Even if I change the saturation ,

the file still in color (unwashed color). I cannot lower the saturation until a B&W file like you can in

Photoshop. In fact the only way to have a B&W on this camera seems to do it after the shoot which is not

the same thing my printer tells me ( because in that case it is the same as if he is doing it on camera raw

or Photoshop)

I also have a Sony R1 that I use as a second back-up and on the sony I can shoot JPEG in B&W. Why is this

not allowed on the Pentax.I like the K10D but if this is the result , I might have to switch to a camera

ssytem that allows it.

Please give me some feedback. Thank you

[godfrey]

You cannot have the K10D generate B&W images directly at the time of making the

exposure, that is not in the camera's feature set. You can transform any photo you take to

a B&W rendering in camera. If you capture in RAW format, you process the image to a JPEG.

Once you have a JPEG, you can apply a monochrome transformation to it.

 

But you would be much better off, with either your R1 or the K10D, capturing in RAW and

rendering to B&W and a JPEG image on your computer. With any camera, really. B&W

photos are a rendering process with a digital camera.

 

Godfrey

[herve_laurent]

Hello Godfrey,

thank you for your answer. But if I do it after the fact , why convert it to JPEG and not to TIFF

or another non-destructive format ?

also do you use any plug in to emulate the look of films in doing the conversion ?

[roger_smith4]

A level 10 or 90% jpeg is good enough for printing without any visible loss of quality- the advantage here is just less file size and thus less time for the lab. You can also give them an 8 bit uncompressed TIFF.

 

I'd suggest doing a quick search for ways of turning color to B&W- there are lots of choices out there. I use the Russell Brown method and the greyscale gradiant map method myself.

[godfrey]

<center>

<img src="http://www.gdgphoto.com/grp-walking/content/bin/images/large/

P1020565.jpg" border=0><br>

Underpass Overhead - Guadalupe River Park 2007<br>

<i>©2007 by Godfrey DiGiorgi<br>

Panasonic L1 + Pentax DA21 Limited<br>

ISO 100 @ f/7.1 @ 1/20 second, Manual exposure<br>

</i></center><br>

As Roger said, JPEG at high quality setting is just fine for printing and is generally what the

print shops expect. TIFF works well too. Be sure to convert the image to sRGB colorspace

and then to 8bit@channel when you are creating the print file.

<br><br>

I don't 'emulate the look of films' at all. I do what I think looks good in B&W, depending

upon the particular scene and my intents in rendering.

<br><br>

best,<br>

Godfrey - <a href="http://www.gdgphoto.com">www.gdgphoto.com</a>

<br>

[anthony johns]

Are you getting your image printed on color or b&w paper?

[herve_laurent]

B&W paper anthony