Hi, just a quick query! I've seen an interesting landscape that I think would lend itself to a b&w image. Should I switch my camera to monochrome to take the picture or should I take it in colour and change it in photoshop? Thanks in advance for any help.
Black and White
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Marc
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The best way IMO is to set the camera to shoot in B&W, but shoot in Raw. That way you get the benefit of instant feedback through the LCD screen, but you retain the colour in the raw file and you can convert yourself later. Much more control that way.
Marc
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Yes you can. The reason I suggested raw was that you can get the instant feedback if you set your camera to B&W but the control when converting to B&W later. If you shoot jpeg, then the camera does the conversion for you.
TheBigYin
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another vote for the "shoot in raw+jpeg" approach - gives you instant feedback as to if the tones work in B&W - it can take a while to get an eye for what actually works as a B&W shot - one way to train your eye for the shot is to carry a orange filter around (the type old skool film people like me use on B&W film shots) and use it like a monocle... the strong orange filter will reduce the colour levels to a mono appearance (albeit black and orange!). Plus, orange filtering brings out contrasts between cloud/sky and for landscapes, is probably one of the more succesful ways of bringing out contrast in a converted shot.
Edit: don't put it on the lens though - you can do the filtering in Photoshop afterwards, and have versatility - if you orange filter it on camera, you're stuck with what you did.
Edit: don't put it on the lens though - you can do the filtering in Photoshop afterwards, and have versatility - if you orange filter it on camera, you're stuck with what you did.