Photo editor for black and white photos


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Nikonnew

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May 31, 2005
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I am currently sourcing for a photo editor and had read about how powerful or adequate Gimp, Picasa is. What about b&w photos, does all this freewares have enough features in this area or we really need a Photoshop kind of software?
 

I am currently sourcing for a photo editor and had read about how powerful or adequate Gimp, Picasa is. What about b&w photos, does all this freewares have enough features in this area or we really need a Photoshop kind of software?

For B&W, I get the best results by starting with a color image and converting to B&W in Photoshop.
 

I am currently sourcing for a photo editor and had read about how powerful or adequate Gimp, Picasa is. What about b&w photos, does all this freewares have enough features in this area or we really need a Photoshop kind of software?

GIMP is pretty decent feature-wise i think.. it is indeed free.

picasa is pretty skimpy in features.

for B&W, i took a quick look in google for you with regards to GIMP and B&W conversion.

it says that there is a channel mixer function:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

as far as i'm concerned, that is sufficient for great B&W conversion. everything else additional with all the gimmicky plug-ins, etc.. that's just convenience, you can do it with curves and simple generalised Burn&Dodge.

if none of these terms like "curves", "burn", "dodge", "channel mixer" make sense, my advice is to read up more on digital B&W conversion, and basic post processing.
 

Just pointing out a small mistake...

It's photo-editing software not photo editor.

Photo editor is a job profession :)
 

thanks for all your replies, I just ordered my CS4 suite.....can't blame the software anymore.....
 

GIMP is pretty decent feature-wise i think.. it is indeed free.

picasa is pretty skimpy in features.

for B&W, i took a quick look in google for you with regards to GIMP and B&W conversion.

it says that there is a channel mixer function:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

as far as i'm concerned, that is sufficient for great B&W conversion. everything else additional with all the gimmicky plug-ins, etc.. that's just convenience, you can do it with curves and simple generalised Burn&Dodge.

if none of these terms like "curves", "burn", "dodge", "channel mixer" make sense, my advice is to read up more on digital B&W conversion, and basic post processing.

Hey, thanks for looking it up....really appreciate the effort. Yes, the dodging and burning is something I see alot in B&W processing articles but knows very little about.

B&W is an area i really love to be proficient in so hopefully its enough motivation for me to learn more about it.
 

Hey, thanks for looking it up....really appreciate the effort. Yes, the dodging and burning is something I see alot in B&W processing articles but knows very little about.

B&W is an area i really love to be proficient in so hopefully its enough motivation for me to learn more about it.

just keep working at it

my advice is to read first, then TRY

then compare your results to photos that are KNOWN to be good, not what you think are good.

what i think was good 3 years ago sometimes looks very contrived to me today.
 

just keep working at it

my advice is to read first, then TRY

then compare your results to photos that are KNOWN to be good, not what you think are good.

what i think was good 3 years ago sometimes looks very contrived to me today.

I think that's how we improve....thanks a lot. Will be going to Manila next week so hopefully I will shoot loads of photos suitable for b&w.
 

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