RAW in black/white

Hello,
I have another question about the RAW file. I usually shoot with RAW+JPG setting. Sometimes I’ll select monochrome setting & this is where I noticed both (the shot) the RAW & JPG are in black/white. I read some articles that mentioned the RAW files will always be in color even the picture control is set to monochrome. This not only happen to my newly bought D750 but also on my older DSLR camera D5000.
Any idea why?
Thanks!

Because RAW is RAW. It's the untreated capture of the scene in front of the lens. When you select B&W, the raw stays whole and the jpeg is treated in B&W. That's how it is. If you don't want to have the color version (something you might regret after fact), you can select just jpeg and forget the RAW file. You'd get faster frames per second bursts with more frames before filling the rubber memory.

The RAW file can be reset to normal. You see it monochrome in Nikon's soft but when adjusting picture control, it changes back to the original data.

When viewing the RAW file on your camera it utilizes the JPEG preview stored within the RAW file, and the JPEG exhibits all characteristics of the JPEG file you would have captured had you been shooting RAW+JPEG at the time. So, if you have your camera profile set to Monochrome the JPEG preview will be in monochrome, if you have it set to Vivid then it will show as Vivid. When you import it onto your computer, unless you are using Nikon-specific software (Capture NX2 or ViewNX2) then it will display in the software default RAW format (in LR or PS that's Adobe Standard unless you set it otherwise). Once imported, LR/ACR allows you to set the camera profile, in which case you can set it to Nikon Monochrome, and the resulting image should closely resemble the B&W you saw in the camera, but it's just one possible representation of the RAW file, which captures the image in color (either sRGB or Adobe RGB depending on how the camera is set).

If I'm going for B&W then I prefer to use Silver Efex Pro 2 to convert the RAW file as I can apply color filters as a part of the conversion, which can greatly impact the look of a shot. But shooting in Monochrome will give me a good idea of what I have.

Thanks guys for the response.
I’m a newbie on post processing. I loaded up the (picture style set to monochrome) shot using the Nikon viewNX 2 software. The JPG naturally is in black/white & can’t be edited or change on the picture style setting.
While the RAW can be changed thus when set to others (other than monochrome) the colors are there.
Now I understand a bit more.

BackdoorHippie said:

If I'm going for B&W then I prefer to use Silver Efex Pro 2 to convert the RAW file as I can apply color filters as a part of the conversion, which can greatly impact the look of a shot. But shooting in Monochrome will give me a good idea of what I have.

Click to expand...

Quick question for you Jake...I don't yet have the Nik Collection. When you say that you apply color filters in Silver Efex Pro 2, is that similar to what Photoshop Elements offers? Sadly I found out that Elements offers the ability to apply color filters while PCC 2014 doesn't (or at least I haven't yet found it).

hark said:

Quick question for you Jake...I don't yet have the Nik Collection. When you say that you apply color filters in Silver Efex Pro 2, is that similar to what Photoshop Elements offers? Sadly I found out that Elements offers the ability to apply color filters while PCC 2014 doesn't (or at least I haven't yet found it).

Click to expand...

Last things first, in CC 2014 you can apply photo filters as adjustment layers : Layers -> New Adjustment Layer -> Photo Filter, or just click on the camera with a filter icon in the Add An Adjustment panel...



As for it acting similarly to these filters in Silver Efex Pro, the answer is "Yes, but not exactly". Silver Efex Pro's conversion to B&W is like the Lightroom and Photoshop conversion to Grayscale where it is not merely a desaturation but they apply some measured color luminosity curve to the conversion (they differ slightly). Unlike Photoshop, however, once the conversion is made, Silver Efex Pro will allow the addition of a colored filter to the conversion process and allow you to manipulate it dynamically as a part of your edit.

In PS you would need to apply the filter at a given strength and then do your Grayscale conversion, and if you didn't like it you need to undo the Mode change (which also collapses all your other edits) do your filter tweak and reconvert, going back and forth until you are happy with it (once you go to Grayscale the Photo Filter adjustment is no longer available).

You could, instead, simply use a Hue/Saturation layer adjustment to desaturate the full color image and then apply one or multiple Photo Filter layer adjustments between the image layer and the desaturation layer, which would act much like the multiple Hue/Saturation layer conversion method I did the blog on a while ago, with each added Photo Filter acting like a tweek to the lower Hue/Saturation layer in that exercise. The additive effect of the filters is likely far less pleasing or controllable than the H/S method and I wouldn't recommend it as an alternative.

As always, thanks for the explanation, Jake!