where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
In a recent magazine article an author suggested a 51 step process for making black & white images. Seems excessive to me.
I've used in-camera settings, Photoshop B&W, desaturation, channels (green chanel), mode change and other methods. What do you use?
Snaketail
for B&W i use Silver FX pro - great software, can be used as stand alone or plugin to aperture/lightroom
at the end of the day it all depends on what you wanna get
Photoshop build in one is mroe thn enf for most of the ppl
recently switched to Silver FX tho.... very good tool : )
I've also recently started using Silver FX pro. It's remarkably flexible, and can produce virtually any black & white look you would want to achieve. It also allows you to control the tonality of speciffic shade, or areas of your photo. If you want to apply the same settings to a lot of photos, it does that rather well also (note: For true batch processing, you will want the photoshop version of the plug-in.
Previously, I would just desaturate in aperture. Silver FX pro gives me much better results. Try it for free yourself... you wont be disappointed.
Shoot RAW with color filters in front of the lens. IE, Red to darken skies, green to enhance foliage. Then use photoshop to fine tune the contrast.
I don't shoot enough black and white to have come up with a good method!
If I ever need to make a black and white image, I use the black and white tool in Aperture. It allows you to select from preset filters, as well as make your own.
@Willis: You didn't notice the special black and white control in Aperture?
alphanikonrex - the B&W build in control in Aperture is nothing comparing to Silver FX, as the second one gives You much more flexibility
The best method I've found in PS so far is using a gradient map. It uses the images tonal range and applies a ramp gradient to it (black to white). You will get much better contrast than converting to a greyscale image, desaturating or using the black&white adjustment.
- Click on the adjustment layer tab (non-destructive edit)
- Choose 'Gradient Map'
- In the adjustment layer panel click on the bar and then choose the black to white gradient.
From there you can adjust the "smoothness" and the value in's and out's.
Try it. I'm going to download Silver FX and see how it compares.
--chris
Alpha - I know about the special B&W control in aperture. By default its hidden in one of the sub-menus (I'm sure aperture has a way to customize which controls are visible at start-up, but I've never bothered. I've always tended toward de-saturate because its easy and right there, and until recently, I never much cared about black & white conversion. I had an opportunity to look at some quality B&W gallary work over my last vacation, and that's what really sparked my interest.
I love the texture that you get with B&W film. You don't really see it on screen because at 72dpi (this will change depnding on resolution) your computer throws out most of it unless you have the worlds largest monitor. Viewed at 100%, or in print (300+ dpi) it becomes more obvious. Thats what prompted me to check out Silver FX.
>In a recent magazine article an author suggested a 51 step process for making black & white images. Seems >excessive to me. I've used in-camera settings, Photoshop B&W, desaturation, channels (green chanel), mode change
>and other methods. What do you use?
Snaketail
Film!
Seriously, I have yet to see anything from digital that approaches film & a wet darkroom.
Jim Couch
To get BW I always carry around my FM2 in addition to my digital gear and when I feel the need for a BW shot, I just fish out the film camera and take the shot. Really no 51 steps of wasted time in PS and from last week the rush of seeing fresh prints develop under your own eyes :)))
Until that developer splashes into your eyes and then you'll be rushing to see again! ;^)
I agree with you Monty, B&W done your way is still the best, but I don't like dealing with all these chemicals and we don't have any B&W film developed locally anymore. We can send away, but the quality is not that great and then to print we need to scan negs etc and we are kind of back to digital
So my film cameras are mostly collecting dust
Pete
B&W film truly is beyond compare. It's like looking at an original painting on canvas as opposed to looking at a print of that painting.
If I could figure out how to nail the settings on my first try, I'd be a film guy. Until then, I'm sticking with mostly digital (with the possibility of a hybrid set up from time to time... digital to get a friendly aperture\shutter speed, and a film camera set to manual).
I recently got a "new" Nikon lens for my view camera, shot some Tri-X and sent it off to Ohio for processing. Three weeks and waiting. None of the local (Dallas) labs are capable of good B&W processing and I put my darkroom equipment in storage a couple of years ago. I know there are labs that do only B&W. I've tried the Denver guy and now the Ohio guys...know anyone that can get it back to me faster than 3-weeks?
To nail film on the first try get a spot meter and learn to use it.
Of course you'll have to scan it once it is developed...Maybe better off shooting digital to start with.
Snake
Hi, I have been reading this forum for a while and decided to join,so hi to everyone.
To convert to B & W in Photoshop, I use a non-destructive method that gives me total freedom over all the tones, here's how:
Copy the background layer twice, on the top layer do a desaturate, I use keys Shift+Ctrl+U at the same time. Change the blending mode of this layer from Normal to Color.
Select the middle layer which is still a colour layer and then use a hue/saturation adjustment layer on it, you can play with the hue and saturation sliders to alter the shades in the top (desaturated) layer. Sometimes I will do an additional adjustment layer using Channel mixer, on this middle layer.
The beauty of this method is the control of every tone you have, the original background layer is just a fallback, but isn't required when saving the file. You can edit the settings as often as you wish. Always save as a psd file.
RichJB.
Hey RichJB, it's good to have a photo chopper on board :^)
I use the method you described a lot because it does give you more control. I also make adjustments using masks and curves. All the methods mentioned so far can be used for various results. No one method will work best for every photo(landscape versus portrait-daylight versus night), so it's best to try and use more than one. That's the beauty, and curse of photoshop, there's more than one way to do things. However the more control you have over an adjustment the better.
Although I miss working in the darkroom, digital gives me soooo much more control over my B&W shots then film ever did. Not to mention my clothes don't mysteriously get holes from the splashing chemicals :^) There are still some film techniques that can't be matched by digital but even then it's still scanned and played with digitally.
I don't like using automatic filters like SilverFx because I want total control over the final image. I haven't really found a one click solution yet.
Niko - I guess You haven't used SilverFX, indeed there's a lot of automatic correction, but there is also the U-point technology from Capture NX, which gives You total, manual control of almost every aspect of the photo
Yes I know, but it's still not the same. It just makes things easy for quick adjustments.
Thanks for the warm welcome NikoDoby, I had a wet darkroom for many years and I spent more time than I ought to have in it, I always had a thrill with every print I ever made. I dabbled with colour, not very successfully I might add, but the monochrome prints were lovely to create.
I have been doodling with Photoshop for 9 years. The thing about PS is that it is an ongoing learning process, we can all learn from each other and help out with some of the things we've picked up along the way. I have learnt that there is always more than one method of doing anything in PS, some ways are easier, some perhaps better and all have their own merits.
Again thank you and I look forward to being part of this forum.
Rich.
Good to have you Rich. I've been photo chopping myself since Photoshop 3.0! Wait I mean I've been using the program since 3.0 not that I fix my own self-portraits. My six-pack abs are all natural ;^)
I really feel sorry for you guys. I have a developer (the one that I know of) at a distance of 15 minutes drive from my home. Last week I joined a local photo club (10 minutes walk) and I can use their darkroom, chemicals, papers, listen to different lectures and visit different locations once a month (our "CSI" photolab is set for November) and all that for less than $50 (income tax deductible) a month.
If you really like BW film then setting up your own small bathroom/other room wet lab is not really that difficult. At least here all the necessary chemicals are sold in local photo stores and Langford's Darkroom Handbook will be your companion. Most of the equipment needed is for sale for next to nothing (here it is at least).
I've used darkrooms for many years Monty. I'm no stranger to look and feel of photo paper and the smell and taste of the chemicals. Well maybe not the taste but you know what I mean. I guess your new to it and that's why your drawn to it. I however enjoy my new digital darkroom because of what I can accomplish with it.
Make sure you dispose of all your chemicals properly monty. Don't go pouring everything down the sink and watch how you store everything!
I know many photographers that suspect their darkroom chemicals caused birth defects and gave them cancer!!!
You must log in to post.
