Black & white? Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends...

Mister H Loc: Michigan

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

Mister H wrote:

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

cannot tell the difference, so I choose to shoot color. conclusion is that I am able change a color photo to black and white, but I have not found a way to change a black and white photo to color.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Mister H wrote:

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

Yes, and of course no. If you shoot in RAW, you can change your view mode to monochrome and still record a color image that you can convert later. If you shoot in JPEG, then shifting to monochrome will produce a monochrome image.

But, and it's a big one, grayscale conversion is so complex, has so many creative opportunities, that you frankly are doing yourself a disservice shooting in anything other than RAW. It is better to develop a creative sense for any given scene to determine if conversion will produce acceptable results.

Did this answer your question?

Mister H Loc: Michigan

rgrenaderphoto wrote:

Yes, and of course no. If you shoot in RAW, you c... (show quote)

Yes and thank you. Part of my learning process. I am shooting RAW & JPEG because of advice and opinions on this site for the reasons you mentioned. And someday I’ll learn to post process my RAW files.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Mister H wrote:

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

Record scenes in raw. Then you have infinite choice of color or monochrome effects!

srt101fan

Mister H wrote:

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

Here's a link to an earlier thread on this topic:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-509826-1.html

btbg

Mister H wrote:

Based on this groups experience, is it better to shoot color and edit to black and white? Or set DSLR to black and white mode to start with. Curious if the quality ends up the same or not. My eye can't tell, but something may be pointed out that I'm not looking for. If this has been beat to death, let me know and I'll try to dig for it. Thank you.

Shoot color and then edit for black and white. That is assuming that you use Photoshop and or NIK Silvereffects. I can't speak for how well other editing software converts images to black and white. At least with Photoshop and NIK, editing in photoshop will give you way more flexibility than shooting in black and white to begin with.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Back in the film days, photographers shooting B&W would use color filters to make certain colors render darker and others render lighter. For instance, the "sky" filters are yellow, orange, and red. They darken blue skies successively darker, where the red filter could make the sky almost black. Now with digital, you can work with the color channels to decide what colors should look darker and which will look lighter in the greyscale conversion. There are at least a half dozen methods to do greyscale conversion in Photoshop, all with advantages and disadvantages. Other programs like NIK Silvereffects are supposed to be good and easy to use.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

btbg wrote:

Shoot color and then edit for black and white. That is assuming that you use Photoshop and or NIK Silvereffects. I can't speak for how well other editing software converts images to black and white. At least with Photoshop and NIK, editing in photoshop will give you way more flexibility than shooting in black and white to begin with.

My ol' go to is Topaz B&W-2. In this subprogram [plugin] one can manipulate the transition to B&W based on color within the "color" photo. So... shoot in color.

Raw, sure ok, but why complicate life unless it is your joy to shift a 5 speed vs driving with an automatic transmission.

David Lyon

Wow, I wish I could help, but being a fun shooter, I don’t have as wide an option. I can print color in b/w but the contrast sucks. I guess I could scan and change, but that is basically what you are doing.

What I understand, the chip will read R/B/G even in B/W mode, so just simply shoot it and convert later.

EricMGB1974 Loc: Elmira, NY

Try shooting in RAW +JPEG with the camera set for monochrome. It's the best of both worlds, especially if you're using mirrorless. You get to preview how the image works in B&W at time of capture and still get the maximum ability to tweak and fine tune the final result from the color original.

BillFeffer Loc: Adolphus, KY

Shoot RAW and process to get BW. You will be able to have much more control over the tonality of the different colors.

markie1425 Loc: Bryn Mawr, PA

orrie smith wrote:

cannot tell the difference, so I choose to shoot color. conclusion is that I am able change a color photo to black and white, but I have not found a way to change a black and white photo to color.

Actually, there is at least one black-and-white to color demo online.

https://demos.algorithmia.com/colorize-photos/

I've gotten some decent results and also some horrible ones. But it's interesting.

applepie1951 Loc: Los Angeles,California

I didn’t know you can set your camera to Black & White, I have D750, D850 And Sony a7rii and I can only set it to Monocrome.....Where is the Black and White setting Mr. H from Michigan?

User ID

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Also agree about post conversion. More options
and control over rendering. I can think of only
one reason to shoot direct mono, and that is if
you own a really powerful red, green, or blue
lens filter ... stronger than those typically used
in BW film work. How powerful ? Difficult to see
thu the filter by naked eye.

Such filters are uncommon, but some dedicated
BW types employed them. For instance a typical
red filter is #25. A rich blue sky will go verrrrrry
dark, but not black, meaning some light got thru
the blue and green filters on the bayer array and
also some blue or green light snuck thru the red
filters in the bayer.

You can assist or reinforce the bayer aray filters.
If you switch to the less common #29 red, skies
will go black. Typical blue filters are #47 but the
#39 is the killer blue, almost opaque the eye. It
renders quite the weird world in BW.

Just mentioning the extremes in case BW really
catches your fancy, big time. Otherwise I'm with
all the other consistent advice thus far !

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