Question for you photog's out there...

[erin anne]

I started my digital photography class and the JC last night...I'm pretty excited about it and the teacher is very witty and seems to know his stuff (plus he likes Canon's and that's what I have)...anyway, he says that you should always shoot in color, then convert to black & white, and that if you have a black & white function on your camera, you shouldn't use it. Agree or disagree?

[MS Photo]

Definitely agree!! Not only do you then keep the option of having the image color but converting to black and white is a technique all in itself. There are many ways to do it and they all lead to different results. Black and white sounds basic but there's really a lot to it and it can go many different ways. Using your camera on it's b/w setting will give you grayish results with min. contrast...not that appealing.

have fun with your class!! Feel free to ask any questions..wait, you already did :)

[Brookepanda]

YES agreed!!!!!!!!! I always shoot in color....and then in my post processing I'll convert to BW!

[becky]

I totally agree too. I like having control when I convert to BW even more so when I think something will look great in BW but ends up looking better with a hint of color.

[erin anne]

Thanks!

[LMS]

absolutely agree. The conversion from color to b/w isn't as easy as just desaturating an image, and doing so (like your camera does) will make your image muddy and lifeless. There are many steps to converting from a good color image to a good b/w image with lots of depth.

[Brookepanda]

Just as an example...here is a picture that was taken in color


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brookepanda/2196251898/" title="playing with uncle Mike *color* by Brookie the Cookie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2140/2196251898_462b01ce85.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="playing with uncle Mike *color*" /></a>

Here it is after I turned it black and white
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brookepanda/2190383739/" title="playing with Uncle Mike by Brookie the Cookie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2359/2190383739_514b46ff42.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="playing with Uncle Mike" /></a>

and just to compare the black and white function of the camera
this shot was taken in the black and white mode of my Nikon D200
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brookepanda/2196260038/" title="D20_0006FINAL by Brookie the Cookie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2309/2196260038_50d8161295.jpg" width="500" height="334" alt="D20_0006FINAL" /></a>

[Stacey]

Oh cool. That's why my b/w photos didn't look so great! This may be too advanced for me... but how do you convert to b/w? Do you use photoshop? Or some other program/method?

[Brookepanda]

Oh cool. That's why my b/w photos didn't look so great! This may be too advanced for me... but how do you convert to b/w? Do you use photoshop? Or some other program/method?

I use photoshop....I made a couple actions...because I like to do different pics with different black and white styles...