var tve_frontend_options = {"is_editor_page":"","page_events":[],"is_single":"1","ajaxurl":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","social_fb_app_id":"234010690138279","dash_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/thrive-visual-editor\/thrive-dashboard","translations":{"Copy":"Copy"},"post_id":"294155","user_profile_nonce":"ed54c21803","ip":"64.227.14.160","current_user":[],"post_title":"When Learning to Shoot in Black and White, You Can\u2019t Just Guess","post_type":"post","post_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/shoot-in-black-and-white\/","is_lp":"","post_request_data":[],"conditional_display":{"is_tooltip_dismissed":false}};
var advanced_ads_pro_visitor_conditions = {"referrer_cookie_name":"advanced_ads_pro_visitor_referrer","referrer_exdays":"365","page_impr_cookie_name":"advanced_ads_page_impressions","page_impr_exdays":"3650"};
var essb_settings = {"ajax_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","essb3_nonce":"043acf6db1","essb3_plugin_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/easy-social-share-buttons3","essb3_stats":true,"essb3_ga":false,"essb3_ga_ntg":false,"blog_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/","post_id":"294155","internal_stats":true};
Black and White photography can provide some stunningly beautiful images that have a classic feel…if done really well – to shoot in black and white (or the mindset) entails more than just a quick conversion in Lightroom.
There was a time when all photographs were done only in black and white, and people were still able to see the different tones (i.e. the tonal range) in black and white. There is immense beauty in black and white photography and it's important to show tonal variations in black and white too.
What we have here is some quick tips for you on how to create beautiful black and white photographs. This applies to both photography and the conversion process.
Quick Fact:
Remember an important fact to be kept in mind while using the term monochrome (varying tones of one color); all black and white photographs are monochrome, but not all monochrome images are black and white!
Did you know about the Zone system of exposure that was developed by Ansel Adams and his friend Fred Archer?
Ansel Adams was known for his famous black and white landscape photographs. You may already know, he was very particular about capturing as much dynamic range in his images (from the deepest black (shadows) to the brightest whites (highlights)).
So he developed this system for metering and exposure that made him stand out from other photographers of his time. His images stood out so beautifully because of the range of tones that they had between the color black and white.
Tip Number 1: Learn to Use your Histogram
Keep a check on your histogram to see that you have a full range of tones before you start the process of black and white conversion, or if you are shooting black and white, make sure that your histogram has enough details for you to bring out the perfect tonal range in your photograph.
Black and white photography is not about capturing just the color black and the color white, but about capturing all the other shades of gray that lie in between black and white!
Look for yourself at the difference in histograms when you change contrast and exposure in an image.
Pay close attention to the histogram. Just look at the histogram for the picture with a correct exposure; you will see there are a good range of tonal variations!
Tip Number 2: Understanding Tonality
You need to choose a scene that has contrasting tonal values. Yes, tonality matters. What happens if you disregard this? You'll simply end up with flat images that will look and feel lifeless with not much to look at.
Truth is, not all images will look good in black and white and you may have to tweak them a bit in the conversion process so that they don’t look flat.
This also tells, do not use automatic black and white settings in your camera, but instead shoot RAW in color and do the conversion manually so that you can tweak up the image later to bring in the tonal range.
What is Tonality? It's the lightness of the image and is very important while shooting black and white. Colors that look very distinct may actually look the same when converted to black and white!
If you don’t quite understand, look for yourself at the conversions below! Amazing isn’t it? (Basic automatic conversion in Lightroom)
But a slight variation of the above colors can create good tonal variations as seen below!
Tip Number 3: Choosing a Good Photograph for Conversion to Black and White
So from the above two tips, what do you gather? You need a photograph that has plenty of shadows and highlights, good tonal ranges and some textures wouldn’t hurt at all, but create a striking black and white photograph.
So, choosing an image that will create a decent black and white photograph is important and that doesn't mean that you cannot make a good conversion from other pictures, but it simply means that it will be more difficult to achieve it.
Look at the images below along with a default black and white conversion to see how they turn up!
Check out these examples:
The image on the right has some tonal values and beautiful textures whereas the image on the left, although a beautiful landscape, lacks tonal range and textures!
If you wish to learn more about histograms, how the Zone System works for photographs along with useful and step by step illustrations to convert photographs into beautiful black and white pieces of art, you really should check out Kent’s“Better Black and White” premium photography guide.
Here is a tip, on some SLRs like a Canon 7D you can use picture styles to see your images in realtime in black and white making it rather easy to see tonality.
var advanced_ads_cookies = {"cookie_path":"\/","cookie_domain":""};
var advadsCfpInfo = {"cfpExpHours":"3","cfpClickLimit":"3","cfpBan":"7","cfpPath":"","cfpDomain":"www.lightstalking.com"};
var beloadmore = {"url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","query":{"post__not_in":[294155],"category_name":"black-and-white","posts_per_page":3}};
var tve_dash_front = {"ajaxurl":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","force_ajax_send":"1","is_crawler":"","recaptcha":[],"post_id":"294155"};
var TVE_Ult_Data = {"ajaxurl":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","ajax_load_action":"tve_ult_ajax_load","conversion_events_action":"tve_ult_conversion_event","shortcode_campaign_ids":[],"matched_display_settings":[],"campaign_ids":[],"post_id":294155,"is_singular":true,"tu_em":"","evergreen_redirects":[]};
(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/lib/modules/conversions-pro/assets/share-conversions-tracker.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/modules/pinterest-pro.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/modules/subscribe-forms.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/js/essb-core.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();
let ccwpDOMLoaded=!1;
let ccwp_loaded = false;
let resources_length=0;
let resources =undefined;
let is_last_resource = 0;
ccwpUserInteractions=["keydown","mousemove","wheel","touchmove","touchstart","touchend","touchcancel","touchforcechange"];
ccwpUserInteractions.forEach(function(e){
window.addEventListener(e,calculate_load_times);
});
function calculate_load_times() {
// Check performance support
if (performance === undefined) {
console.log("Performance NOT supported");
return;
}
// Get a list of "resource" performance entries
resources = performance.getEntriesByType("resource");
if (resources === undefined || resources.length <= 0) {
console.log("NO Resource performance records");
}
if(resources.length){
resources_length=resources.length;
}
for(let i=0; i < resources.length; i++) {
if(resources[i].responseEnd>0){
is_last_resource = is_last_resource + 1;
}
}
let uag = navigator.userAgent;
let gpat = /Google Page Speed Insights/gm;
let gres = uag.match(gpat);
let cpat = /Chrome-Lighthouse/gm;
let cres = uag.match(cpat);
let wait_till=300;
let new_ua = "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 11; moto g power (2022)) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36";
let new_ua2 = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Safari/537.36";
if(gres || cres || uag==new_ua || uag==new_ua2){
wait_till = 3000;
}
if(is_last_resource==resources.length){
setTimeout(function(){
console.log("ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts timeout : "+wait_till);
ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts();
},wait_till);
}
}
window.addEventListener("load", function(e) {
console.log("load complete");
setTimeout(function(){
calculate_load_times();
},100);
});async function ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts() {
if(ccwp_loaded){ return ;}
ccwpPreloadStyles();
ccwpPreloadDelayedScripts();
ccwpLoadCss();
ccwpScriptLoading();
ccwp_loaded=true;
}
function ccwpPreloadStyles() {
let e = document.createDocumentFragment();
var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("link[rel=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].href = removeVersionFromLink(cssEle[i].href);
let r = document.createElement("link");
r.href = cssEle[i].href;
r.rel = "preload";
r.as = "style";
e.appendChild(r);
}
}
document.head.appendChild(e);
}
function ccwpPreloadDelayedScripts() {
var e = document.createDocumentFragment();
document.querySelectorAll("script[type=ccwpdelayedscript]").forEach(function(t) {
var n = removeVersionFromLink(t.getAttribute("src"));
if (n) {
t.setAttribute("src", n);
var r = document.createElement("link");
r.href = n, r.rel = "preload", r.as = "script", e.appendChild(r)
}
}), document.head.appendChild(e)
}
function ccwpScriptLoading(){
var jsEle = document.querySelectorAll("script[type=ccwpdelayedscript]");
jsEle.forEach(function(t) {
t.type = "text/javascript";
if(t.src)
{
t.src = removeVersionFromLink(t.src);
}
});
}function ccwpLoadCss(){
var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("link[rel=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].href = removeVersionFromLink(cssEle[i].href);
cssEle[i].rel = "stylesheet";
cssEle[i].type = "text/css";
}
}var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("style[type=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].type = "text/css";
}
}
}
function removeVersionFromLink(link)
{
if(ccwpIsValidUrl(link))
{
const url = new URL(ccwpFormatLink(link));
url.searchParams.delete("ver");
url.searchParams.delete("time");
return url.href;
}
else{
return link;
}
}
function ccwpIsValidUrl(urlString)
{
if(urlString){
var expression =/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,4}\b(\/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)?/gi;
var regex = new RegExp(expression);
return urlString.match(regex);
}
return false;
}
function ccwpFormatLink(link)
{
let http_check=link.match("http:");
let https_check=link.match("https:");
if(!http_check && !https_check)
{
return location.protocol+link;
}
return link;
}
4 Comments
Very useful article. thanks
Hi Robert, glad that you found this useful! 🙂
Here is a tip, on some SLRs like a Canon 7D you can use picture styles to see your images in realtime in black and white making it rather easy to see tonality.
Hi Ken, thank you for that 🙂