B&W photos?? how to appreciate

[weg]

Noticed that there are quite a lot of B&W photos arnd which I think most have been made by stripping off the colors with PS.
Think B&Ws have nice feel to them, but cant help but think that many of those photos would have been less attractive in color, and the stripping of the colors is just a convenient way to somehow beautify the image.

Any comments on this? :dunno:

 

[Belle&Sebastain]

I think that depends on the photographer desire to express his/her thoughts into the image. I read somewhere that a b/w image shows the soul of the pic, the graphic qualities. Only when you think it will help to express better your image that any effect is desired. No personal bias against any, i love both colours and b/w.

 

[sbs99]

There's a difference between real B&w print and shots stripped of colour...unless the person has really good skills in photoshop.

B&w specialists would agree with me.....colour photos stripped of colours...juz dun have tat "feeling".

 

[Belle&Sebastain]

the feeling, the soul?

 

[excentrique]

I started from Black and white Photography and transit to colour photography. The two type of film are very different in quality. In b/w, the photographer does not really care about the colour of his surrounding. He just capture moments. Colour photography requires greater discipline from the photographer. If he fails to appreciate colours, then the picture will often not turn out desirable. Ultimately, they are just different mediums just like a pencil and a colour pencil. If you can't draw, colour pencil won't make a difference in your drawing. Film is a sensuous medium. The grains, colours which is so real and yet unreal. Life, people,and our surrounding kind of looks more sexy in such way.
I think that explains why many people find B/W appealing.

 

[ckiang]

Like sbs99 said, there is a BIG difference between an image stripped of its colours and REAL B&W output, it's subtle, but it's very easy to tell.

B&W film has a different response to the various colours than that of a CCD/colour film, and simply desaturating a colour image usually does not make it.

The other thing is that, by stripping off colours (digitally or by using B&W film), it lets the viewer concentrate on the emotion, etc of what the photograph is trying to convey. Without distracting colours and all, you more or less automatically look at the subject. This is probably one of the reasons.

The other reason is probably that we grew up in the colour world. So seeing B&W is a novelty.

Regards
CK

 

[excentrique]

In addition to CKiang's respones..

I agree that b/w film have a totally different latitude of tones compared with digital or color film. If you have a chance of doing an actual b/w print, you would probably understand this better. However, in today's context where digital advancement is so great, we can minimise and bridge the difference between the films or digital. Softwares like photoshop have capabilty which can adjust the tonal range and matching coloured prints as close as possible with black and white. (that if you know how to use them proffesionally.)

Especially with the introduction of powerful desktop printers available, more people including proffesional are leaving the darkroom. In speed wise, it's much faster than working in the darkroom thus very efficient for commercial usage. Even the Strait Times photographers does this! This will even be so after a few months time when Epson printer is introducing their 'new toy'.

However, I strong believe that traditional B/w still have it's appeal..especially to areas like fine arts. However for commericial usage, colour will normally do the trick.

 

[Midnight]

Originally posted by ckiang
Like sbs99 said, there is a BIG difference between an image stripped of its colours and REAL B&W output, it's subtle, but it's very easy to tell.

B&W film has a different response to the various colours than that of a CCD/colour film, and simply desaturating a colour image usually does not make it.

Are you referring to converting an RGB image to "grayscale" (in Photoshop) and then reverting to RGB? If so, then I certainly agree with you about this. The results are much duller than actual B&W film due to the way the conversion is performed with different colour hues.

However, isn't this the "wrong" way to convert a colour photo to B&W? I have very limited experience with so-called digital B&W, but I am under the impression that the more common method is to convert the image to Lab colour mode and extract the luminosity channel as the B&W image. The resultant image using this method do look pretty convincing, especially if you subsequently tweak the photo further using Levels and dodging/burning.

Perhaps the experts here can share their tips on how to achieve a "proper" B&W look...?

 

[roygoh]

The discussion on how to convert and handle B&W photos in PS is off topic, and I have moved the related posts to "Technical Discussions" under "B&W photo how to in PS".

You are welcomed to discuss your thoughts, experience and appreciation of B&W photography here.

Thanks!

Roy Goh
Moderator