Mofarad's High quality Black and White

Black and white goes back to the very origins of photography. Early plates and films had limited sensitivity to longer (red) wavelengths of light and produce a certain interpretation of the subject. Later films had a much more even response to colours (panchromatic) that led to a different ‘look’. The differing chemistry and manufacturing processes adopted by various manufacturers resulted in different films producing subtly different renditions of the same scene. It was soon discovered that using coloured filters in front of the lens also altered the image.

Some cameras do indeed have a black and white setting that might be worth a try, but I’m looking a getting the very best out of my camera and want to use ‘raw’ images, just the same as I would with colour. The black and white setting gives you 8 bit black and white JPEG images. If you shoot raw and JPEG at the same time you’ll find that the raw files are still in colour.

I’m going to be looking at converting the raw files to colour and then to black and white. The examples all used Corel Paint Shop Pro for raw conversion and subsequent image processing. You could use other raw converters and photo editors just as well.

In my own work I often apply some fairly hefty curves and adjustments to my black and white images. Posterisation can be a real problem if you are working with 8-bit images (such as from JPEGs). One way to reduce the risk is to work in 16-bit where you have more data to play with.

Back to the sky and clouds.....

I compose and take the picture just as if I had black and white system in my camera.Well not quite, I might select a filter, maybe a light orange filter – red often looks too much like moonlight.

With digital I can still apply the equivalent of a coloured filter for black and white, but I’m going to do it later with Corel Paint Shop Pro. I also have the advantage of changing my mind if I decide, for example, that a yellow filter would have been better.

It is true that the process is not quite equivalent, but certainly very similar. Those is my opinion about BLACK and WHITE photos.. enjoy... :)

Some of my black and white candid captured