Nice Black n White Pic?


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Eleanor15

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Mar 17, 2009
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I've seen nice B&W pic with a very nice contrast..How do you actually get nice B&W without the need for editing? Thanks..
 

Or set your camera to "B&W" mode in the picture styles. :p
 

I've seen nice B&W pic with a very nice contrast..How do you actually get nice B&W without the need for editing? Thanks..

shoot film.

otherwise, b&w conversion, that step is the most important when converting digital color to bnw.. because it is the step that determines how you show what you want to show, and whether you have done it effectively.

and leaving that conversion up to your camera... that is disgusting to me.
 

and leaving that conversion up to your camera... that is disgusting to me.

Well, it may be disgusting to you, but TS is obviously unwilling to do post-processing. So what else is left?
 

I've seen nice B&W pic with a very nice contrast..How do you actually get nice B&W without the need for editing? Thanks..
there are some books in our National Library on B&W photography, some are for film and some are for digital.

if you really want to know more about shooting b&w on film well, than you shouldn't miss the three books by the late Ansel Adam, the Camera, the Negative, the Print.

hope this help.
 

write a action in Photoshop,

apply desaturate
apply auto level
apply auto contrast
save and close doc


you can ran a batch process of converting a few hundreds files from color to b&w in less than 10mins.

hope this help.
 

which reminds me,

never to use in-camera editing tools :)

actually

i used them for my amsterdam black and white shots. :)

cos very free on the flight back, play and play until i get something i like, then minimal work back home.

it depends, pentax editing can put filters, and not too much degradation of IQ :)
 

Well, it may be disgusting to you, but TS is obviously unwilling to do post-processing. So what else is left?

I've seen nice B&W pic with a very nice contrast..How do you actually get nice B&W without the need for editing? Thanks..

Those b&w pictures that you see, might have gone post processing.
so nice b&w photos need photoshop!
good luck and yes, b&w is very nice.. ;)
 

shoot film.

otherwise, b&w conversion, that step is the most important when converting digital color to bnw.. because it is the step that determines how you show what you want to show, and whether you have done it effectively.

and leaving that conversion up to your camera... that is disgusting to me.

in that case, film is disgusting?
 

:bsmilie:

wow, ok

when you buy film, it jumps into your pocket and you pay...

i don't think you have read up much about film :bsmilie:


Yes, I really do not know the technicality of film, but it was a more straight forward flow for me:bsmilie: leave the tweaking to the lab
 

Yes, I really do not know the technicality of film, but it was a more straight forward flow for me:bsmilie: leave the tweaking to the lab

well, when it comes to bnw film, they have different tones, contrast level, grain,etc.. :) so all these are set for you in the film , in some sense, compared to like.. digital, where if you take iso100 well exposed all will tend to have the same contrast (given same light), same tones (given same workflow of bnw conversion).. :)

so for film choice, it depends on personal preference of matching film type to subject. for example, i haven't had the chance to use tri-x, but to me, it is beautiful for portraits. :)
 

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yes, I know it is definitely more complicated than I make it out to be, but I what I really meant was for the general population of "photographers", film used to be more straight forward workflow. Not many people had a darkroom to do tweaking whereby now everbody owns some sort of a digital darkroom and suddenly, tweaking is a must for even everyday photography. Digital age is supposed to make things easier, but itseems like we are spendng more time tweaking photos now.

Maybe someday, fujifilm, kodak , agfa, and all other film makers, will release firmwares where we coud load into our cams to make the pics look like the products of their film....that might be fun.:bsmilie:
 

Maybe someday, fujifilm, kodak , agfa, and all other film makers, will release firmwares where we coud load into our cams to make the pics look like the products of their film....that might be fun.:bsmilie:

i won't mind. i'm sure velvia would be very useful :heart:

well, last time, most people not using slr due to huge costs (as fraction of pay), now it is getting cheaper, and people are also more willing to spend on such things. digital also much easier to tweak compared to dark room, you already will have existing infrastructure (i.e. computer), whereas darkroom requires one to set up something.
 

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