tarsen Loc: Minneapolis MN

I have seen some beautiful black and white photos on this site. I have only been able to get grey and white with my Rebel T6i set to monochrome and my 18 to 135 lens.
How can I get better black and white images? Should I be taking pictures in color and then converting to B&W? I have both Picasa (that I still use) and Luminar 3 which I don't know very well. Attached is an example.
Appreciate any good comments, but flames to dev/null.

(Download)

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

>"dev/nul" - Love the reference!

tarsen Loc: Minneapolis MN

Left over from my Unix days.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

Have you tries shooting in color then converting in post other than shooing using the camera’s monochrome setting?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

That and maybe using Canon's DPP and adjusting the contrast/highlight/shadow values?

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

In either case, you should be shooting in color. I believe you have then a choice of six different colors to lighten or darken as you see fit. Your photo is not in focus, so that might help a little. It would also help if you knew the ZONE system as proposed by Ansel Adams. The tree bark in your photo may not have pixels from zone 1 to zone 8. All the tones may be from zone 3 to zone 7, which will not be very much contrast.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Monochrome images, to be most successful, should contain a wide range of tonality, ideally from black all the way to white. But neither the full black nor the full white should normally dominate the image. Ansel Adams and other well known photographers have written repeatedly and quite disparagingly of what they called "chalk and soot" images...those with excess contrast and a dearth of the important mid tones. And proper focus is critical. Were you perhaps closer than the minimum focusing distance of the lens that you were using?

Some folks prefer to shoot color and desaturate the images. I prefer to use the monochrome image control options along with the in-camera fine tuning capabilities (sharpness and contrast, primarily) and filter opportunities they provide. This not only provides the best JPEGs, but also the best starting point for post processing raw images.

I do not know what picture controls your camera offers. I'd take a look in your manual and menu and see. But you also have to remember one thing that 99% of photographers either forget or ignore...that is that the best monochrome image is almost never simply a desaturated version of the best color image. An almost completely different set of factors define a great monochrome image. That is one of the primary reasons that I am not a big desaturation fan. Visualization needs to be completely different for monochrome' and it requires an intentionally different approach and strategy. It's just like fact that playing an organ requires a completely different style and touch than playing a piano, even though the keyboards look almost identical.

Just as a comment, it appears to me that your image may have been taken with your camera set up more appropriately for portraiture, specifically with reduced contrast and sharpness. I would start by seeing whether or not that is the case and whether you could make adjustments to capture bolder images.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Re your focus: were you handholding or using tripod? 1/15 second is difficult to keep sharp result - or as others have suggested, there may be the issue of your being too close.

To get the result in this link, I shot in raw (which produces a color image), then used PS Elements and Nik Silver Efex for the conversion: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-630773-1.html

If you have robust software, editing a raw file for b&w result will give you more control and allow selective editing of tones. (I don't know what Luminar has for b&w options.)

B&W is mostly about shapes, textures and shadows & light. I can't emphasize enough the importance of light!

My T3i allowed b&w jpg + the raw, and you could see the b&w composition when shooting by using the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder. Once you learn to "see" in black and white, it will be easier for you to think more abstractly about shapes, shadows etc. And you will notice when the tonal range is rather flat, meaning you will need to work harder at finding impact. Are you interested in shooting raw or want to continue working with jpg?

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Learn to manipulate contrast, sharpness and light.

F8 Forever Loc: Lng Island, NY

Lotsa good comments here, but the key is for you to experiment. I don't know the mono capabilities of your camera or software, but you're going to have to play around a lot to get what you want.

FWIW, if Leica has been selling its $10,000 M10 Monochrom for years now, and might even put out a Model 4. It has a chip specifically designed for mono and it seems to work better than playing around with color images. I'd buy one if I had the cash. I remember 120 PanX aan PlusX with the prints developed in a two-bath developer I made from what I think was an Ansel Adams recipe. Nothing like it. And, I believe the original Foveon chip was mono and found itself in Hasselblads making huge images.

But, I digress...

Sit your Rebel on a tripod in your living room and find something interesting to shoot and several backgrounds to shoot it against. Shoot it in raw (if available) and in whatever color and contrast enhancements are available on the camera. Then you download GIMP and start playing. You can play with the contrast on the mono one, and play with reducing color on the others. Eventually, you will find something that works. Near as I can tell, everyone with those spectacular B&Ws did something like this.

Or, if you've got 13 grand lying around... (3 grand for the Summicron lens-- Leitz ain't cheap)

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Merely desaturating color images is the least sophisticated method of creating monochrome images, with no options for manipulating the result. But there are numerous methods of converting color to monochrome which do allow you to lighten or darken different colors as if you were using color filters with B&W film. I have also found most converted monochrome images need some adjustment of contrast with curves or levels. These give you many more options than using in-camera monochrome controls. I believe shooting RAW and converting in post is the way to go to get the best monochrome images.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

You might want to take a look at Faststone. It's a free processing program, with a more sophisticated control of parameters that make conversion of color to B&W better than Picasa

tarsen Loc: Minneapolis MN

Gosh
I can't thank you guys enough for all the good info. First I am going to start to find better subjects, with more contrast. I will look at the monochrome options in my camera and finally verify the close distance and make sure I have the shutter speed up to my minimum.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

There's nothing wrong with your choice of subject. Don't wait for circumstance to provide you with high contrast subjects. If you want more contrast you'll have to learn how to add it in post processing. Waiting for reality to provide you with suitable high contrast subjects will be far too restrictive. The shapes, textures and "sculptures" that nature provides us with are perfectly good subjects for B&W. Adding contrast, sharpening and manipulating brightness levels are all basic editing and not difficult to master.