A successful B&W image isn’t simply the absence of color, it’s the presence of something more, a something (or somethings) that reveal the essence or the soul of the subject. Sometimes that essence requires color, other times color gets in the way of the truth expressed with more power as a B&W image.
The tones or values of both color and B&W photographs are continuous, that is, they range from the darkness of absolute black to the white of the print paper itself. The contrast of light and shadow and the tones in between help us to distinguish one object from another. Colors, or more properly the differences among colors, add another set of visual clues to our real world environment and color photos.
Imagine the contrast between red and green. Now suppose these two colors share the same middle tone or value. Not an issue in a color photograph but when two colors share the same tones in a B&W photograph you lose the contrast and the colors blend — not a good thing at all.
B&W photos depend entirely on tonal contrasts for the play of light, shadow, form and texture. Subtracting color from an image isn’t enough, you must put the “color” back into the monochrome image using contrast.
Color images are formed from three color channels, red, green and blue (RGB). Millions of colors are available simply by combining different percentages from each of these channels. The best way to convert a color image to B&W is to extract this information using one or more RGB channels. The process is straightforward and not difficult when you understand the principles and get a bit of practice under your belt.
I’ll show you how I do my conversions in part II using one of the photos below (probably the street scene) as an example. Both color originals are scans from color slides that I shot 43 years ago when I was stationed in Vietnam. All my old slides suffer from fading and color shifts. I converted these images to B&W because I could eliminate the color problems and I thought the B&W would be stronger. I like the results. To my eye, both B&W conversions are convincing and look like they could have been shot on B&W film.
Click to enlarge
Vietnam from On High (click to enlarge)
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Saigon Street Scene (click to enlarge)
Thank you John..you have a willing if uneducated student in me. I only have PS Elements and until recently I didn’t even try to use it. I don’t find it the most friendly software so I am really looking forward to your tutorials….Michelle
I got PS too and I am still struggling to get the hang of it
Even the most user friendly tutorials usually loose me half way through, because PS isn’t doing what they say it should do
Thanks for the Tutorial John!
I am finally almost recovered and back on track.
The difference the b&w makes in the above images is simply amazing!
PS is a bear (from what I know of it). Here’s a little secret. PS is a monster program written for graphics professionals, NOT photographers. It has a monster price too. Glad you’re feeling better.
Nah, that was one good thing about being in Kuwait, grin….. I would rather use nothing that pay those Bucks, sorry,…
[...] that I have a greater appreciation for as my experience increases. The Aware Writer mentions in some of his writing that he’s been converting some of his old colored pictures to B&W, of which the results [...]
Hello Teach…Thanks for sharing this information. I gotta wait until I see the next the conversion post. It’s hard for me to understand all of this just by reading it. I need to see the how it’s done to see what you are really talking about.
When I look at your photos, they are just awesome. But what I can’t figure out, is when you converted it to black and white and there was too much color to be shared in the black and white what it would look like. I guess what I’m saying is I would like to see a black and white that you thought was bad and didn’t do the conversion right.
To me, from your very first paragraph, it seems like essence or soul of the subject is all in what the person doing the conversion or just plain taking a black and white photos. It’s all from their perspective. So you and I could look at one subject and see it in total different ways.
I’m probably making more out of this than I should, but it’s just me. I want to get this and understand photography so I can use my new camera correctly one of these days and not just always on auto LOL. One good thing is Nicole at Nicole B Photography as challenged people for a black and white photo and we have to do research on B&W. This is going to help me to try and get a black an d white up for her January challenge. Her link is HERE.
Lead on, sensei. We await the next lesson.
I like the street scene in black and white! Thank you for your lesson in converting photos to mono..
I use Paint.net a lot for my B&W conversion. I sort of understand how to use the brightness and contrast tools to tweak an image but I know there is more. You have talked about “curves” which Paint.net provides but are as meaningful to me as Sanscrit. I am all ears (and eyes) professor.
I just added a new tag “brightness curve” so you can find the posts where I mention curves. I did an extensive tutorial on the subject a few weeks ago. The title is “How to Scan B&W Negatives: The Power of Curves.”
http://awarewriter.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/how-to-scan-bw-negatives-the-power-of-curves/
John I have a feeling many more will love to review your articles, I have saved this one in my reader to view it when the need arises. I like the old feel your slides have reached there is something powerful in a pic that dates it’s self with it’s own gray hairs (so to speak) but I agree the B&W lets the photo make a powerful statement let the conversions begin!
Thanks Amanda. I just finished the draft for part II. It’s much longer (nearly 1,000 words) with a dozen illustrations. I think I’ll post it earlier that expected. I need a break now but it should be up sometime this afternoon EST.
[...] colors. I used red and green colors with similar tonal values as an example in Part I. Choose a green filter and the green will be a lighter monochrome tone, red will be darker and we [...]
In both color photos the BW in better in my opinion, the color is (dull?) boring in those photo.
The wing on the plane frame the photo- good.
– like you said some need color some is better without. MB
[...] blog that I follow, John at The Aware Writer had two tutorials on black and white photography. Digital Photography: Converting Color Images to B&W I and Digital Photography: Converting Color Images to B&W II. If any of you don’t follow [...]
[...] pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]
[...] tips pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]
[...] tips pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]
[...] tips pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]
[...] tips pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]
[...] tips pop on over to the Aware Writers site for some lessons on mono shootin’ there is a lesson here, and here and his whole site is filled with monformation! Thanks John for making the time to help [...]