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View Full Version : Black and White Digital Photography - In Camera or Post Production?


Suhit Gupta
06-29-2006, 03:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/black-and-white-digital-photography-in-camera-or-post-production/' target='_blank'>http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/black-and-white-digital-photography-in-camera-or-post-production/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Digital Camera manufacturers are increasingly adding ‘in camera editing’ features and modes to the cameras that they release that allow digital photographers to do all kinds of tasks that they would previously have done from their computer. These include in camera cropping, the addition of frames to shots and being able to shoot in different types of colors/filters including black and white and sepia. The question that I’ve been asked a few times this week is: ’should I shoot in black and white mode or convert my colored shots later into black and white on my computer?’ My approach to this has always been to shoot in full color and to edit later if necessary. The problem with shooting in these modes is that you are making all of your creative decisions about your shot at the time of shooting and that in most instances shooting in these modes means you cannot recover full colored shots."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/black-and-white.jpg" /><br /><br />I remember when I first played with a digital camera many years ago and was so impressed with the built in B&amp;W and Sepia options and then thinking that it was unfortunate that my DSLR did not have these features. Of course, over the years I have never actually missed them and Photoshop was always more than enough for whenever I wanted any particular effects.

Jason Dunn
06-29-2006, 05:32 PM
I definitely think it's best to keep it all in full-colour on the camear, then do B&amp;W changes on your PC. You never know when you'll want an image in colour, and once you snap the shutter on your camera, there's no going back...

Damion Chaplin
06-29-2006, 07:37 PM
Also, you never know what kind of funky B&amp;W translation your camera's doing. For full control, convert the photo to Lab RGB, select the brightness channel, then convert to grayscale. I also find that ramping up the contrast afterwards gives you a more classic B&amp;W look.

Always save your original color copy. I took a nice picture of a succulent plant, intending the entire time to make it a B&amp;W picture. When I showed the picture to my wife, she thought it looked better in color. Good thing I saved the original.