What Makes a Good B&W???

[mabas9395]

I really like the look of black and white photos when its done well on the right shot. There have been many discussions on the best way to do the conversion, but I am looking for your thoughts on what shots make for a good B&W photo?

Do you plan on converting to B&W when you are taking the shot, or do you look at it during PP and say "that would make a good B&W"? If so, what was it about the shot that made you think it would be better as B&W?

Sometimes, a good color photo can be made great by converting to B&W, but sometimes a great color photo can ruined by the same process?

I want to learn not the hows, but the whens, and thought you guys might be able to help me out. If you have any examples of color vs b&w to make your point, that would help too.

 

[Master Mason]

typically from what I have read and seen, to make a good black and white you need a strong subject, one that can stand on it's own without the need of color to make a statement.

The lack of color tends to draw your attention to the subject much more so than when it is in color, because it is not how you view things though your eyes.

 

[Furgus]

I have always been fascinated by black and white photos. I love them, and I try to think about how a picture would look in black and white. There is not right way or wrong way to make a black and white photo. I usually try to make it something with a lot of contrast.
Right now I use lightroom to convert my shots to B&W. I found some great presets and it gets me started then I finish the rest with the channel mixer or other methods. I have yet to read the entire article on Ansel's Zone system, but I do look at from time to time.

 

[Gdad]

Sometimes a nothing special shot really lends itself to B&W- but if you are planning that you are way more advanced than me. Here is one I took just making sure the batteries were okay in the flash...

 

[tinksdad]

I find it hard to take pictures with the end result in B&W in mind at the shutter release time. Since I think and live in color, everything starts from there and then if the thought strikes it gets coverted and we have a look-see.

Strong subject with good contrast really helps. Sometimes a photo that has blown out highlights will convert to a better B&W.

WDW tiger;

I like the B&W one better. Seems more interesting somehow.

 

[jann1033]

usually i just think" hey i'd like this in B&W" pp but if you shoot raw you can shoot in b&w and still have the color info as well ( kind of a cheat )

one thing i think is a good b&w needs good contrast. a lot of gray areas are boring imo, you need strong contrast to make it pop unless of course you are going for a more dreamy effect, then i like it washed out but usually sepia. plus a good design element, if i look at a photo and see the overall "design" of the photo rather than the "subject" i think it makes a better black and white.( hope that makes sense to someone else)

I love B&W. in reality that is one of my goals to just get rid of color ( seriously) ...i think they are harder to master by far cause you need to erase the color in your mind ( or cheat with the raw) since i think it would be better to set out to take a b&w rather than stumble into it. needs more training and impeccable composition imo, neither of which i have the skill for at the moment
as usual should have used a tripod for this as it's a little soft but i liked the set up. originally i put it in portrait but like it better landscape

the hardest thing for me pp is i tend to make it too contrasty and blow the highlights...haven't perfected that either but this one i liked the way the pistils( if i remember my botany right) contrasted with the petals and then angular thing behind the petals(maybe that is the calyx?) kind of a geometric form you don't really normally see in a flower due to the color

 

[Furgus]

Actually I have read a lot of B&W books, and articles that say you should never use the B&W setting in your camera. You don't have any control in how the camera interprets the B&W conversion. Sure some of them look pretty good, but you can PP to make it look a heck of a lot better.
With the B&W tools available in CS3 and Lightroom, I have made more great B&W shots then I ever have.
Here are some of my conversions I made on our trip to Seattle. I sent these off to Mpix.com and had a hard cover book made out of them. It turned out pretty good, although I like my B&W pictures a little bit darker then what they printed out for me.

Seattle Book

 

[jann1033]

Actually I have read a lot of B&W books, and articles that say you should never use the B&W setting in your camera. You don't have any control in how the camera interprets the B&W conversion. Sure some of them look pretty good, but you can PP to make it look a heck of a lot better.
With the B&W tools available in CS3 and Lightroom, I have made more great B&W shots then I ever have.
Here are some of my conversions I made on our trip to Seattle. I sent these off to Mpix.com and had a hard cover book made out of them. It turned out pretty good, although I like my B&W pictures a little bit darker then what they printed out for me.

Seattle

Book

if you use the B&W in raw it doesn't convert it to b&W but when you look in the viewfinder you see what it would look like in b&W. when you download the photo it still has the color info and then you convert it. if you take b&w in jpg( which is what they are talking about, having read the same books probably ) you don't have the color info so it's already converted to B&W ( no control there)

it's a kind of nifty trick to help develop your eye to see b&w, rather than to actually take something in b&w, hope that made my post more clear ( ie only 80 % muddy)

 

[Furgus]

Yes it did, and I reread it after I posted and realized that is what you meant I still kept it up there for the folks who shoot in JPEG (I only shoot RAW now, I am fully converted)
Sorry for the confusion.

BTW my D50 does not have a B&W mode.

 

[jann1033]

Yes it did, and I reread it after I posted and realized that is what you meant I still kept it up there for the folks who shoot in JPEG (I only shoot RAW now, I am fully converted)
Sorry for the confusion.

BTW my D50 does not have a B&W mode.

.... you may be converted but you retain all your color info

 

[mabas9395]

Here are some of my conversions I made on our trip to Seattle. I sent these off to Mpix.com and had a hard cover book made out of them. It turned out pretty good, although I like my B&W pictures a little bit darker then what they printed out for me.

Seattle Book

I like your Seattle shots. I live about 40 miles north. In fact, the largest building in shot #4 is where I work. I'm sitting there right now (supposed to be working).

I've taken a few shots of Pike's Place Market, maybe I should try a B&W conversion on some of them.

 

[photo_chick]

Good but not overdone contrast. As with any shot a great subject and great light. The biggest thing to me that will make or break a black and white shot is the midtones. Rich midtones are important and part of the reason good black and white shots can be difficult to print on an inkjet.

There are times when I am out shooting and I think that a particular shot would look much better in black and white. There are times when I see the shot when I am in Lightroom and I think it would look good.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

As for what makes a good B&W shot, I can't really say. I think having good tonal range helps.

The best tip I can give to a newbie on making B&W is to experiment with your colors. I know that sounds daft, but you can dramatically change the look of a B&W picture by adjusting the colors first. As an example, if you have a picture with a blue sky and clouds, you can darken the blues in the photo before B&W conversion and your clouds will stand out much better against the sky.

Another example is a bunch of red flowers on green plants. If the green and red have the same luminance value, you'll lose the flowers when you convert. If you boost the luminosity of the reds before converting, you'll have bright flowers against a light plants.

In the olden days, you used to have be able to anticipate these things and add colored filters to your camera before you shot. Now, you can play with these "virtual" filters on your computer before you do your B&W conversion. If you're just desaturating your image, you're missing out.

 

[juligrl]

I think some of my best black & white stuff are things that have a lot of texture to them. There's this rusty old railroad bridge by my cottage that I've probably photographed a hundred times over the years. It wasn't until I did it in black & white that I finally felt I had done the bridge justice and had a photo worthy of hanging on the wall.

 

[Groucho]

For the tiger shot, I actually prefer the color one.

I like a lot of contrast and texture as well. I did a couple b/w conversions when going through my old Romania photos with Lightroom, fiddling with the different colors levels to achieve a result I was happy with:

In both cases, I used Lightroom's virtual copy to keep a color and a b/w copy. I like the texture in both of these.

Unfortunately, Lightroom's somewhat different exif data is making my gallery web script not save the exif data when resizing... works fine if I resize in Irfanview then upload. So far I haven't gotten any response from the Gallery folks...