Opinion wanted What do you prefer?

[Guest 272]

Location

Europe

Camera type

Bridge camera

Camera sensor

1"

As someone who is still learning, I took a few photos having set my camera to take B&W photos I was pleased with some which I viewed on the camera. However when I viewed them on my laptop the images were in colour! I was confused why this happened, until I did some research online and found that the problem was, I had been shooting in RAW, In order to retain them as B&W they should have been shot in Jpeg. Lesson learned although I strongly suspect you all knew that! Any it got me thinking do any of you prefer to shoot B&W photos or colour?

 

[Andy Smith]

Nice shot Phil,
I sometimes shoot in monochrome within the camera to get a general idea of the end image, but I always shoot in RAW which then enables me to take the colour image and tweak certain colours in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw to get different contrasts between greens, yellow, blue & red, but in a B&W image.
You can really push or pull colours to get a better overall end image I believe, by darkening down or lightening up elements within the image to draw attention to certain areas.
In lightroom (or ACR) under the develop module, basics panel, you can choose Color or Black & White, choosing B&W then actually changes the HSL/Color panel to a B&W panel from which you can play with the colour sliders to darken or lighten them separately as desired.
An example would be the house or bridge in your image, which could be darkened or lightened to really make it pop and stand out, just by playing with the colour sliders.

 

[Guest 272]

Nice shot Phil,
I sometimes shoot in monochrome within the camera to get a general idea of the end image, but I always shoot in RAW which then enables me to take the colour image and tweak certain colours in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw to get different contrasts between greens, yellow, blue & red, but in a B&W image.
You can really push or pull colours to get a better overall end image I believe, by darkening down or lightening up elements within the image to draw attention to certain areas.
In lightroom (or ACR) under the develop module, basics panel, you can choose Color or Black & White, choosing B&W then actually changes the HSL/Color panel to a B&W panel from which you can play with the colour sliders to darken or lighten them separately as desired.
An example would be the house or bridge in your image, which could be darkened or lightened to really make it pop and stand out, just by playing with the colour sliders.

Hi Andy, thank you very much for the explanation/advice I had never tried that but, I have now. I have had a play with the image etc. Would you be able to download my first image and see what you can do with it, I would like to see what improvements you could do? The photo below is one I have played with, my intention was to make the bridge stand out, what do you think?

 

[lightmuncher]

I always shoot in colour, and like Andy do my adjusting in lightroom and photoshop. Although I remove the colour saturation, it still allows me to play with RGB settings in Photoshop. Which means I can adjust the colour spectrum to lighten or darken, but still remain in B&W. I prefer the first image to be honest. And what Andy says I wholeheartedly agree with.

 

[Andy Smith]

Downloading your image would not be very helpful really Phil, as the idea is to use the colour image and convert it to B&W in Lightroom rather than in camera, so you can adjust the separate colours individually.
This video explains it better than I do:



Step 5 - Black & White mix is the idea.

Like lightmuncher, i prefer your first image as the second on seems to be more yellow/brown than B&W.

 

[Guest 272]

Downloading your image would not be very helpful really Phil, as the idea is to use the colour image and convert it to B&W in Lightroom rather than in camera, so you can adjust the separate colours individually.
This video explains it better than I do:



Step 5 - Black & White mix is the idea.

Like lightmuncher, i prefer your first image as the second on seems to be more yellow/brown t

Downloading your image would not be very helpful really Phil, as the idea is to use the colour image and convert it to B&W in Lightroom rather than in camera, so you can adjust the separate colours individually.
This video explains it better than I do:



Step 5 - Black & White mix is the idea.

Like lightmuncher, i prefer your first image as the second on seems to be more yellow/brown than B&W.

Morning Andy, thank you for taking the time to find and posting that youtube video, which will be a great help! Because the first image was only in black and white, when the weather is good I shall go out and retake the same image in RAW and in colour then I will follow the instructions on the youtube video to see what I can produce. Once done I will post the image back on here for more comments. I really appreciate your input. Thanks again.

 

[Andy Smith]

Only too glad to help Phil, I know how frustrating things can be so help is always offered when I can.

 

[ruedas]

As someone who is still learning, I took a few photos having set my camera to take B&W photos I was pleased with some which I viewed on the camera. However when I viewed them on my laptop the images were in colour! I was confused why this happened, until I did some research online and found that the problem was, I had been shooting in RAW, In order to retain them as B&W they should have been shot in Jpeg. Lesson learned although I strongly suspect you all knew that! Any it got me thinking do any of you prefer to shoot B&W photos or colour?View attachment 1721

I find that if I am aiming for B&W I get better results shooting in B&W, in LR I change the colour profile to Adobe Monochrome.

 

[Guest 272]

I find that if I am aiming for B&W I get better results shooting in B&W, in LR I change the colour profile to Adobe Monochrome.

Thanks ruedas, I think I need to experiment more within lightroom and photoshop. I have in the past produced a black and white with just a touch of colour such as the sky, which I quite like. Not everyone's taste I know, but as the saying goes "beauty is in the eye of the beholder!"

 

[markmullen]

As someone who is still learning, I took a few photos having set my camera to take B&W photos I was pleased with some which I viewed on the camera. However when I viewed them on my laptop the images were in colour! I was confused why this happened, until I did some research online and found that the problem was, I had been shooting in RAW, In order to retain them as B&W they should have been shot in Jpeg. Lesson learned although I strongly suspect you all knew that! Any it got me thinking do any of you prefer to shoot B&W photos or colour?

A raw file has no processing whatsoever, imagine the sensor being a bucket filling with light and colour, all a raw file is is the contents of that bucket, hence choosing a style like B&W does not affect the raw file. It's actually a good idea to shoot raw and B&W jpeg if you're wanting B&W as the display on your camera will at least give you an idea of what the B&W image might look like once you've finished editing the raw file into a B&W image.

 

[Guest 272]

A raw file has no processing whatsoever, imagine the sensor being a bucket filling with light and colour, all a raw file is is the contents of that bucket, hence choosing a style like B&W does not affect the raw file. It's actually a good idea to shoot raw and B&W jpeg if you're wanting B&W as the display on your camera will at least give you an idea of what the B&W image might look like once you've finished editing the raw file into a B&W image.

Hi, thank you for your comments, the advice sounds like a good idea, one which I will endeavour to take up! By the way welcome to the group, I hope to see some of your photos soon.

 

[TonyB]

Thanks ruedas, I think I need to experiment more within lightroom and photoshop. I have in the past produced a black and white with just a touch of colour such as the sky, which I quite like. Not everyone's taste I know, but as the saying goes "beauty is in the eye of the beholder!"

Desaturated colours can be very effective. Treat the image as a work of art, not a record shot.

 

[TonyB]

As others have said, I prefer the mono version.
I always record images as raw images and process them to mono in post processing. Even though I take raw images, I sometimes find it helpful to show as mono on the LCD/viewfinder, particularly if I intend to convert to mono in post. This has the advantage of seeing the tonal range of the greys and can help with exposure and composition. Try it.

 

[Guest 272]

As others have said, I prefer the mono version.
I always record images as raw images and process them to mono in post processing. Even though I take raw images, I sometimes find it helpful to show as mono on the LCD/viewfinder, particularly if I intend to convert to mono in post. This has the advantage of seeing the tonal range of the greys and can help with exposure and composition. Try it.

Hi Tony, thank you for your comments, I will indeed be trying it. In relation to seeing it as art and not a record shot, I actually do treat my shots as art. Thanks again.