I have a question: I do a lot of street Photography. This is one from a Friday night street dance. What is the best method of converting it to Black and White ?

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Jul 1, 2012 12:14:53 #

geraldjohnson

I do a lot of street Photography. This is one from a Friday night street dance.
What is the best method of converting it to Black and White ?

Jul 1, 2012 12:18:50 #

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

What do you have for postprocessing? If nothing, then download Picasa and use its default B&W for starters.

Jul 1, 2012 12:21:19 #

RaydancePhoto

geraldjohnson wrote:

I do a lot of street Photography. This is one from a Friday night street dance.
What is the best method of converting it to Black and White ?

In most any image manipulation program, select 'Colors' -> desaturate OR 'Colors' -> greyscale.

In any case, it will be a one click operation under color management.

Jul 1, 2012 12:24:00 #

Leonardo Loc: The Garden of England

Well you could completely desaturate, or you can use filtered black and white.

For most pleasing results, I would opt for Filtered B&W... using Picasa.

Jul 1, 2012 12:34:06 #

Doug B Loc: Edmonton Alberta

That is a very nice shot

Jul 1, 2012 12:38:37 #

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

It depends on what software you have, but I can tell you that any "one-click" operation is not the best. In fact, the straight Convert to Grayscale is the absolute worst.

You asked what is the "best" way. There are several really good ways but one of the VERY best is NIK Silver Efex Pro2. ( A plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom) If you shoot RAW, the Adobe Camera RAW has some excellent ways. In Photoshop, using the Channel Mixer can give great results.

Sure, you can go with one of the one-click things, but once you do it right, you will never go back.

Jul 1, 2012 12:55:21 #

geraldjohnson

Thanks Captain C

CaptainC wrote:

It depends on what software you have, but I can te... (show quote)

Jul 1, 2012 13:53:45 #

Festina Lente Loc: Florida & Missouri

geraldjohnson wrote:

I do a lot of street Photography. This is one from a Friday night street dance.
What is the best method of converting it to Black and White ?

Great shot!

I'm not sure what the best way is, but the worst way is to simply convert the image to B&W in any program, or to strip away the color information in something like Adobe Elements.

I like and use NIK Silver Efex Pro2 and access it from my work slow program (Lightroom). Lots of flexibility and surprisingly complex options. But you will get something you really like. Other programs are out there that claim to do the same, so it is a matter of researching them.

Botton-line: I'd say the best way is to use a program that is dedicated to B&W conversion, and not one that has it as an option buried in some drop down menu. Easy, but not best.

Jul 1, 2012 14:39:43 #

geraldjohnson

Thanks Festina Lente

Festina Lente wrote:

quote=geraldjohnson I do a lot of street Photogra... (show quote)

Jul 2, 2012 05:27:37 #

Paul57 Loc: Birmingham, UK

Have a look at http://powerretouche.com/
Plugins available individually or as a suite. Work with any software that supports Photoshop plugins. I find B&W plugin superb.

Jul 2, 2012 06:38:16 #

sudzmonn Loc: here , there , everywhere

can't you shoot in B&W right from your camera ?

Jul 2, 2012 06:42:03 #

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

geraldjohnson wrote:

I do a lot of street Photography. This is one from a Friday night street dance.
What is the best method of converting it to Black and White ?

I use DxO FilmPack 3, which is either stand alone or a plugin (I use LR4). It gives you a B&W conversion with the film grain that would have applied if you had used B&W film in the first place. There are 26 B&W films to choose from. The results can be really something. It also has presets for colour negative films, colour positive, cross-processed and creative (sepia and the like). And you can create your own.

Lightroom itself also has plenty of presets, including a whole lot of B&W.

The advantage of presets is that someone else has done all the hard work for you, all you need to do is decide which look is best for your photo.

Jul 2, 2012 06:48:28 #

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

sudzmonn wrote:

can't you shoot in B&W right from your camera ?

It's much better to shoot in colour and then convert.

Jul 2, 2012 07:30:33 #