b&w

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matty198111

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mat
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is it best to shoot in black and white or convert to black and white

its for a picture of my kids and i would like it in b&w but not sure which way to do it


cheers

mat
 
Best to shoot in colour and convert it after, that way you can have it in either colour or B&W, if you shoot B&W then you can't go to colour.
 
Would also suggest shooting in RAW (if your camera supports it) - you'll be able to convert and tweak the levels to your heart's content.
 
If you absolutely must.
 
I think that woulddepend on the camera.

I'd shoot colour then convert, gives you much more options than just a straight greyscale.
 
I'd also think about how to convert: A straight-forward de-saturate often gives lacklustre results. I use GIMP and I have plug-ins that approximate several types of old film b+w. such as HP5, FP4, Neopan etc. The 'warmth' of blacks and grain effects differ. I'd be surprised if other PP packages don't include something similar.
Of course, you could just tweak it yourself :)
 
I'd like to say shoot b/w in camera, you are then forced to learn how to shoot b/w.
But I'm not sure the digital reproduction of b/w is worth the effort, so at least if you shoot raw you can save your conceived b/w with.........colour.....:whistling:
 
Personally, if I was forced to shoot with digital, I'd set my camera to record RAW+jpeg. That way the preview screen images (at least on my Canon) would show as black and white shots helping me get a handle on how the B&W would look. It can actually take a while to be able to visualise how something will look in black and white from just looking at a colour image.

When it comes to processing the final shot, work with the raw file, which should still have all the colour information present, and use whichever software you prefer to do the conversion - as stated ^^^ up there, a simple desaturation isn't generally enough, and you may well need to do quite a bit of work to the file to get a good result. My cheat of preference would be to use Silver Efex Pro, either straight from Lightroom, or if I needed to do a little more work, from CS5. Sadly, that little bunch of software costs more than most entry-level camera kits :(

Though in all honesty, I'd stick a roll of HP5+ in the EOS-3 and just shoot on film :shrug:
 
TheBigYin said:
Personally, if I was forced to shoot with digital, I'd set my camera to record RAW+jpeg. That way the preview screen images (at least on my Canon) would show as black and white shots helping me get a handle on how the B&W would look. It can actually take a while to be able to visualise how something will look in black and white from just looking at a colour image.

When it comes to processing the final shot, work with the raw file, which should still have all the colour information present, and use whichever software you prefer to do the conversion - as stated ^^^ up there, a simple desaturation isn't generally enough, and you may well need to do quite a bit of work to the file to get a good result. My cheat of preference would be to use Silver Efex Pro, either straight from Lightroom, or if I needed to do a little more work, from CS5. Sadly, that little bunch of software costs more than most entry-level camera kits :(

Though in all honesty, I'd stick a roll of HP5+ in the EOS-3 and just shoot on film :shrug:
Click to expand...

I think that's the best way to do it.

If you fiddle with the pre-sets in picture styles you can adjust the black & white image for contrast and even filter effects etc. That's how it will apear on the LCD and if that turns out how you like it, then it's job done straight out of the box.

But if not, then the Raw file still has the full colour image retained and you can do anything you like to that.
 
I *think* if you have a Canon camera set to RAW only and choose B&W option it automatically creates a b&w JPG as well as the colour RAW file.
 
I don't think I can 'shoot' in B&W any more...not since the D1x anyway...
 
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