B&W home printing

[Rent]

Does anybody shoot with the camera set on monochrome and is this better than shooting in colour and converting afterwards If this has been asked before I'm sorry I missed it
Roy

[Manfred M]

Roy - I've move your post into a new thread. This is an entirely new question and should be here on its own.

From a purely technical standpoint, converting the image using post-processing tools will give you a lot more flexibility in how you handle the image. The B&W image that comes out of a camera is an 8-bit jpeg, any raw data will still be in full colour. While I have played with that mode on my camera, I have never used it for any serious shooting and always do my own B&W conversions, either by in Photoshop and manually playing around with the colour channel sliders or sometimes using the Nik Silver Efex plugin.

[Donald]

Roy -I don't know the level of your knowledge about photography, so let me ask: - Are you familiar with the differences between shooting in RAW and shooting in JPEG? Does your camera allow you to shoot in RAW?

[Rent]

I have been an amateur photographer for about 55 years I was taught the basics by a professional industrial photographer whose dictum was keep it simple ie one film one developer one paper He used 5x4 plate cameras So I recon I've a fair understanding of photography as was Then comes digital I use a canon 50d and can shoot in jpeg raw or both I have photoshop CS2 and the programs that came with the camera But I still work on the principle that the least post processing the better I am open to suggestions I am happy with what I get I prefer taking photos to playing on the computer I was just wondering what others did
Thanks Roy

[Donald]

Thanks Roy.

I always shoot Raw and do my B & W conversions in the digital darkroom.

I do have my camera set to Monochrome, as that then shows me a B & W jpeg on the back screen. That allows me, along with an analysis of the histogram, to know if I'm in the right ballpark.

[Manfred M]

Roy - the way I look at B&W in a digital camera is somewhat similar to how I looked at shooting B&W film using filters to enhance the looks I got, from a red or yellow filter to bring out the sky to a green to improve skin tones.

The difference is that now I can apply these filters either singly or as multiple filters in the digital darkroom, i.e. in Photoshop when I do my edits.

I have been at serious photography about 10 years less than you have and the commercial photographer who taught me was into different developers, films and papers. He was definitely into wet darkroom image manipulation - cropping, burning and dodging was done in virtually every print, the easel and enlarger head would get tilted to correct perspective distortion. So I probably spent more time in the wet darkroom than I did on a shoot.

That basic methodology is still with me - just as I was taught that the negative is not perfect, neither do I find the straight out of camera image to be perfect and I will tweak virtually every image I take. If you are okay with the straight out of camera images you get, then who are we to argue?

In retrospect, I do understand where I got the idea that negatives are never perfect. The commercial photographer who mentored me was trained by the negative retoucher of a world renowned portrait photographer, so I suspect that is where that bias was transferred to me.

[thetraveler]

But I still work on the principle that the least post processing the better

I always shoot in raw and then convert in post processing. I adjust luminance for each color before I convert or use a method that allows me to adjust during the conversion.
This gives infinitely more control than the on-lens filters or adjusting development time or using different contrast papers.'

[rpcrowe]

"But I still work on the principle that the least post processing the better"

I agree that getting the best image in camera is important but, my principle is that the correct amount of post processing to achieve my desired effect is best. I won't anchor myself down by restricting the amount of P.P. that I will do for an image. Some images are pretty cut and dried and need nothing more than some initial sharpening while others stretch all my creative skills as well as the capabilities of my software.

IMO, P.P., is part of the enjoyment of digital photography. I did like wet darkroom work in my film days but, there was always the cleanup as well as the washing and drying of the prints to look forward to. That wasn't fun

It is much more fun just to save an image and shut down the computer. Plus, I don't need an entire space just dedicated to a darkroom. Additionally, I can always sit down and work for a few minutes or a few hours - that is my choice. It wasn't worth setting up a wet darkroom for a short amount of work.

[Donald]

IMO, P.P., is part of the enjoyment of digital photography.

I couldn't agree more.

Some people seem to find PP an undesirable task. I've always argued that pressing the shutter is the end of the first part of making an image and post-processing is the second part.

I love PP and will spend anything up to an hour or more on one image.

[mastamak]

Hello Roy,
I agree with all the comments above. Shoot in raw, set your camera to jpg monochrome if you want to pre-visualise the shot in the field and learn to enjoy post processing, it can be very rewarding. One suggestion I might make is not to rely on your Photoshop CS2 solely for your monochrome conversion. Download the NIK filters (they are free) and learn to use Silver Efex Pro for your monochrome images.

[Rent]

Thanks all I've a bit to learn about digital processing But Ill get there slowly