Primer on B&W photos?

Hi all, just writing to pick your collective brains for your tips and insights on B&W photography. For instance, what key things would you do different when composing & shooting a B&W shot (vs. color)? And if you could use your existing color photos, how would you screen for prospects to convert to B&W? An example or two would be greatly appreciated.

Background is I got entered into a friendly challenge to produce a few B&W photographs, and I'm trying to take an educated approach rather than brute force. Thanks for your help!


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What software d you presently use for photo processing?

For me B/W is a (struggling for the right word) cant think of it,i see an image and feel i would like that in B/W so i do it,not very often though,i think to go out and take pictures for B/W in this day and age when the viewing public is so used to colour cant be easy.Its possibly easier for the older generation of photographers as there early years where a diet of B/W images,i can remember the boasts from magazines "special issue double colour spread inside".

Don Kuykendall said:

What software d you presently use for photo processing?

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Right now I'm mainly using the Photos for Mac app (iPhoto replacement in OSX El Capitan). I have Capture NX-D and View NX-i for PC if needed.


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Can't help you then. I am on a PC with Lightroom and Photoshop. They both have some good tools for converting to B&W.

mikew said:

For me B/W is a (struggling for the right word) cant think of it,i see an image and feel i would like that in B/W so i do it,not very often though,i think to go out and take pictures for B/W in this day and age when the viewing public is so used to colour cant be easy.Its possibly easier for the older generation of photographers as there early years where a diet of B/W images,i can remember the boasts from magazines "special issue double colour spread inside".

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Fair point. I converted a few of my color images to B&W just for s&g's and found I was quite poor at predicting which of them would convert well. For instance, I had this nice shot of late evening traffic ahead and storm clouds above, but converting to B&W sucked all the life out of the images, particularly the contrast of the tail lights against the dark road in front.


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Don Kuykendall said:

Can't help you then. I am on a PC with Lightroom and Photoshop. They both have some good tools for converting to B&W.

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No worries, I wasn't concerned about the conversion part (Photos App has a B&W conversion setting) as much as understanding the subtleties / art of B&W photography.


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I can't help with the programs you are using, but I love Nik Tools Silver Efex to really bring out the amazing in a black and white photo. The other thing is that you want your whites white and your blacks black but without clipping either. This contrast really makes a black and white POP. If you really want to get into playing with black and white then try your hand at a red filter - but that is a whole other learning experience.

Hope this helps in some way.

You are right in that every photo is not good for B&W. I have a friend that shoots B&W almost exclusively and although I don't like his subject matter the photos are fantastic. The key to all of his work is that they are all high contrast. To give you an idea of what his subject matter is they get stolen all the time and used on modern romance novels

Like @mikew said, it's hard to describe when and what I would shoot as B&W in mind.
An old man with a wrinkled face and a cigarette between his chapped lips, screams for B&W.
A baby that just pooped her diaper, not so much.

You know... you can set your Camera's Set Picture Control's menu to Monochrome... Then that gives you immediate feedback via your LCD display... You can further modify the Monochrome setting to give you the degree of contrast/color that you want...

Well I convert usually in Aperture but I also have Tonality Pro which is a plug-in for Aperture and I have to agree that contrasts images convert best, subtle shades of color not so much

Interesting Question ... and not an easy one.

I have been taking B/W for almost 50 years and it has become almost 2nd nature to me. I think that probably 'texture' is the most important thing to look for. The texture of the wood, the trees, the rock ... etc. But then again that might not always be the way to go for some scenes.

You just sort of develop an eye for it. I know that's not much help. There is no magical formula except practice, practice, practice. And then you will start to know -- and feel what will work.

One trap NOT to get into is over-processing a B/W photograph. Some people PS them to death and end up with something that looks like a crumpled piece of tin foil: sharp and abrasive. I, personally, like to just tap up the sharpness a tad, maybe add a touch to the contrast, and very seldom tweak the highlights a smidgen.

Back in the 'good old days' it was always the rule to use the finest-grain lowest ASA film you could find and the most expensive high contrast paper you could afford.


Here is one that was just totally boring and mundane in color but took on a whole new life in B/W. Some of parts of it are sharp and some parts aren't but it makes a whole.

lorenbrothers said:

One trap NOT to get into is over-processing a B/W photograph. Some people PS them to death and end up with something that looks like a crumpled piece of tin foil: sharp and abrasive. I, personally, like to just tap up the sharpness a tad, maybe add a touch to the contrast, and very seldom tweak the highlights a smidgen.

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Just one opinion, just a talking point, but I think a bit of actual white tone and actual black tone would help your picture to sparkle.

That was a rule for Ansel Adams, to always have something very black and also something very white in his pictures. Contrast is that range of tones. He did it with dodging and burning, no digital yet. Maybe his pictures were often not realistic views of nature, because they were extremely manipulated, but they were very eye catching and we can say his was considered to be good B&W work. Contrast was most of it, and contrast is about all B&W has going for it.

In the Levels tool (the histogram tool), we just adjust the black point higher to be at least where the data actually starts. Same for white point, to be adjusted lower to be at least where the data actually starts at that end. And even a bit more than that is not always bad (for B&W... like shown below). It is clipping then of course, which changes the colors in RGB, and excessive clipping can lose detail in B&W, but it really can help contrast (in B&W). B&W needs more contrast than color, which is not so good for color work, in general.



The highlights were already slightly clipped, but this was only the tiny scattered drops splashing. My notion is that a bit larger white areas would be good, more dramatic.

A discussion on Ansel Adams is a whole 'nother ball of kittens ... he was an expert 'technician' and would have loved PS. I will start a thread on that sometime in the near future but not today. lol

I am going to post, in about 1/2 hr, some B/W photographs I just took today in a new thread. You might want to take a peek.