Can digital do black and white photos? |
| Date Added: June 15, 2007 12:00:00 AM |
Black and white photography has a beauty all its own. Unfortunately, the digital process doesnt always produce great black and white results. The main problems I see with digital black and white photos are... o Loss of information o Lack of contrast o Sharpening artifacts o Unattractive colour cast Fortunately, each of these can be solved in digital post-processing. Loss of information As soon as you convert a digital image to black and white, image information is reduced from 24 million colours to only 256 shades of grey. This loss of information shows up in those parts of an image that require a smooth transition from light to dark. Where black and white film would have delivered a gradual change from one shade to the next, a digital black and white image is likely to show banding. One solution is to use the 16-bit greyscale mode available in some image editing software. This gives you 4,096 shades of grey to work with. I use Picture Window Pro ($USD90) to convert into and edit 16-bit greyscale images. All of Picture Window Pros editing tools work with 16-bit images, unlike Photoshop CS3 (which I refuse to buy until such time as Adobe bring their UK prices into line with their US prices). Lack of contrast Converting a digital colour image to greyscale usually results in a fairly dull image. This is often down to a lack of contrast. You can add contrast digitally, but this wont necessarily help you differentiate between the main subject and its background. Its much better to include a digital colour filter in your conversion to black and white. I tend to use the black and white module in Corel Paintshop Pro X, though Adobe Lightroom and Bibble both offer excellent black and white conversions if youre shooting Camera RAW. Sharpening artifacts Some black and white images benefit from extra sharpening, because it adds micro contrast and helps to increase the dramatic impact of the image. Unfortunately, this also adds sharpening artifacts (halos around edges of high contrast and hard dots). You can remove sharpening artifacts by applying a blur to those specific areas of the image that need it. I use the blur brush in Photoshop Elements. I generally set the brush opacity to around 40% to preserve some detail. If Im blurring a halo around around a light object set against a dark background, Ill set the mode to darken as this helps blend the light object into the background. If Im blurring a halo around a dark object set against a light background, Ill set the mode to lighten. Unattractive colour cast Digital images often have an unattractive colour cast, and dont look anything like as good as black and white film. This colour cast can be mitigated by applying your own colour filter to an image. Photoshop Elements provides an excellent tool for applying colour filters, as does Picture Window Pro (offers the additional advantage of working with 16-bit black and whites). I experiment with the percentage of filter Ill apply. I want the image to still look like a black and white, so the effect is subtle. I tend to get my best results with dark blues and magentas, though some images suit deep brown tones (sepia effect). Experiment The best thing to do, is experiment with your image. Work on it until youre happy. The above four tips will get you started on the road to getting much better black and white digital photos. About the author: Wayne specializes in finding ways for business to use the Internet to make more sales, reduce costs, and improve service. He provides a variety of Internet services related to the above. Youll find his site here: |
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