I shot b&w for years with medium and large format cameras. Since I've gotten into digital imaging, I've not taken one shot in b&w.............or even thought much about it! I know my D200 will record in b&w, and I know there are provisions in all the post processing programs to turn a digital image into b&w. (mine is NX) So my simple question is: Which is the better way to produce b&w images? Or maybe I should ask "preferred" method?
My preferred way is to shoot in RAW, and then postprocess into B&W using the channel mixer in Gimp.
Actually, that's a lie. My preferred way at the moment is using Ilford HP5 in one of my antiques. And it's making me into a better photographer: having to really think about the composition and exposure before pressing the shutter release is quite refreshing, after shooting solely in digital for a few years.
I don't know if any of my B&W shots are any good yet though, as I still need to buy chemicals and process the film (I guess I could send them off instead, but where's the fun in that?). But my digital pictures are getting better since I started using film again.
Shoot RAW. You retain far more information and allow for many more options for your post-processing program to do the conversion such as applying various color filters to effect the darkness of the sky, skin toning, contrast, etc etc etc.
Well, my original question was directed towards whether to shoot b&w in the camera or use a post processing program to do it. I always shoot in RAW, so didn't even think to mention that. Guess I need to start messing with it. I really miss b&w images. It's been a lot of years since I "thought" in b&w. Thanks for the tips and responses.
My suggestion is to never let the camera do the conversion for you. First off, using NX in post you can do the exact same conversion the camera would do, but if the camera does it, you would have no other options do to the original conversion on your own. And second, I'd look at the dedicated conversion programs, such as Nik Silver Efx Pro or Alien Skin Exposure 2. They offer a wide range of controls, film simulations, etc., and I believe both those programs run as stand-alones as well as PS plug-ins so you would not need to get PS to use them.
I do a lot of B&W conversion and I havent found one "do all" method. It REALLY depends on the image. But the first thing I do is set my camera to shoot RAW+JPEG and set the picture style to B&W. This has a few advantages. First off, you get the RAW data, but the jpeg will be in B&W.. I find this is a great way to preview which shots will make good black and whites right away on location, sometimes shots I think will make good B&W don't and sometimes the B&W preview reveals shots I wouldn't have thought would work.
Once I'm back at the computer I use the B&W Jpegs to decide which shots I'm going to work on. After that I develop the RAW image as a colour image.. I never do the B&W conversion in the raw converter as that makes it a one shot deal. Once the colour shot is in photo shop I play around with a few conversion methods until I find one I like, I usually save a layer with each attempt at conversion so I can easily compare them after and pick the best. Here's the methods I use in roughly the order I try them:
If the image is fairly low contrast I skip right to the gradient map option, it seems to work great on low contrast images giving a lot of "pop" and works pretty bad on high contrast images. Oh..and one more thing, i find using any kind of noise reduction software AFTER the conversion works much better as it no longer has to deal with Chroma noise and you loose less detail with greater reductions.
My method is shooting in RAW, and using the RAW editor change it to b/w and adjust the brightness levels for different color channels. Add vignette and sharpen as necessary. Also sometimes I like adding toning to the images. It all depends on your style. Hope this helps!
Even when shooting film you have different pre/post processing choices you can make to effect the final picture. You have your choice of fine or course grain film, choice of development processing for different effects. Then you have your choice of paper contrasts and textures etc... So even with film there are quite a few choices to make depending on what you want your final image to look like.
So using straight out of the camera digital B/W is somewhat limiting ultimately, although I enjoy doing it from time to time and it does a surprisingly good job most of the time if you do your part and expose it properly.
The digital post-processing genie has been let out of the bottle...for better or worse..
The best way to B&W is to start with the biggest large format camera you can carry. Then make a right at film, proceed to pyro, left turn at the fixer, followed by an even light for contact printing. Anything else? Kicking tires.
