It should be easy to get good black and white digital photography from a modern digital camera.
After all, most come with a black and white mode to enable instant black and white photography.
But my advice – steer clear of any of those special camera modes!
Look at the photographs below (one was converted by the greyscale method, the other by using the "channel mixer").
If you would like your black and white digital photography to look more like the second photo, rather than the lifeless greyscale of the first photo, then read on.
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Submit your black and white photos, and share them with the world!
Submit your photo and we (and other visitors to the site) will be able to admire your original photography.
It will also give some 'black and white' ideas to others - and you'll be able to pick up some ideas from those who have already contributed too!
NB: any comments your photo(s) receive are screened before being posted on this site
Click to submit your photo!
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Before you get stuck into your black and white digital photography you might want to have a look at my
black and white photography tip #1
which goes through a few basics on what sort of scenes work best for black and white digital photography, and what might be best avoided!
Greyscale vs true black and white digital photography
The photographs above are of Hong Kong at night (great place to visit by the way, highly recommended!).
The first image is in greyscale. It looks lifeless compared to the punchy black and white of the second image.
To create top quality black and white digital photos like this I have used the channel mixer function in Photoshop.
Your camera software To start with your camera though. It probably came with some photo editing software. You might have your own software – perhaps Photoshop, Photo Impact, Photo Studio – or any one of a dozen or so programs that have “photo” somewhere in the title!
Any of these will do a better job at black and white digital photography than your camera will.
Think of it this way – your camera is specially designed to capture photographs. Your software is specially designed to edit photographs. Don’t ask your camera to do a job that your software is designed to do – it’s not what it was made for!
And now for the science bit! To explain in a little more detail:
Light is made up of many colours - think back to rainbows, prisms and "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" at school.
NB: for the interested, the first letter of each word in the Richard . . . phrase represents the colours of the rainbow in order. R = red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
When you capture an image with your digital camera the lens focuses light onto the image sensor.
The sensor is made up of millions of light sensitive dots. These are called “photosites” - just think of them as individual dots. Look at my pages on
digital photography printing
and
Digital photography printing - understanding resolution
for more on this.
Your sensor records three types of light – red, green and blue (RGB). It records the strength of each of these from a scale of 000-255.
So, a photosite might have a reading of:
Red – 212
Green – 028
Blue – 056
The strength of each colour is combined to get an overall colour for that dot. In this case, because red is the strongest colour, this will give us a reddish coloured dot.
NB: If all three were 000 that would be pure black, and if they were all 255 the result would be pure white.
And the maths part . . . Now, think about all the information you have there. Three colours, with 256 possible strengths of colour.
256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216
Wow! Each dot can represent any one of over 16 million colours. That’s a lot of colours!
So what happens of you set your camera to black and white digital photography mode? It throws away all of those colours and simply records the strength of light at that pixel – on a scale of 000 – 256.
000 = pure black
255 = pure white
anything in the middle is grey.
This is the main reason why I implore you to not set your camera to black and white mode.
If you do you are asking your digital camera, that is capable of recording any one of over 16 million combinations to choose from just 256 of them. You’re basically throwing away information that you might just need later on.
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Still not convinced? More reasons? You may well decide later on that, actually, that picture might look better in colour.
If your camera never recorded the colour information when it took the photograph (i.e. it was set to black and white digital photography mode) you can't put the information back later on. It's gone for good.
If you decide to go for a black and white photograph anyway, then your software is more than capable of throwing away that information. At least you'll have the choice.
But wait! There’s more. Even if you have taken your full colour snap and decided that it suits black and white digital photography, tread carefully.
There are ways to make your black and white digital photography really stand out, and then there’s greyscale again. Go back to the two images at the top of this page to remind yourself why.
To create top quality black and white digital photos like these you need to use your photo editing software with a little care. I have used the channel mixer function in Photoshop.
Click for more on how to use Photoshop to produce the best
black and white digital photography.
Got a black and white photo you're proud of?
Do you have a black and white photo lurking on your hard drive that you are particularly proud of?
Share it with the world!
Use the form below to upload your photo, and also, tell us a little something about it.
Where was the photo taken? Was there any special "look" you were going for? Did you do any image editing? (or is it exactly how it came out of the camera?)
Tell us anything you like, it's your photo, after all!
What Other Visitors Have Submitted
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
Fallen
This was a tree that we spotted from the road in Oak Creek Canyon - Sedona Arizona.
The lively trees in the background are a great contrast to the ...
Lost in the Woods
I saw this old manure spreader that caught my eye so I took a couple of pictures.
Then in Picasa2 I cropped it a little, turned it to B/W then darken ...
Pansy Face
Followed the tip steps with Adjustment Layer/channel mixer.
We absolutely love this submission. Flowers are quite a conundrum for black and white photographers ...
Patience
Irish step dancers were waiting for their turn to perform. I wanted to capture the patience they were showing as they waited.
It was originally in ...
Violinist In Training
My Daughter is learning Violin and I wanted some beautiful pictures of her and her new instrument. This photo was taken in color and converted in Photoshop ...
Bark
Last summer I visited the South Downs (in southern England). We were going round an ornamental garden and I was taking all the usual photos of the flowers,...
mushrooms
It’s some cool mushrooms.
IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO POSSIBLE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
This is an interesting photo – black and blue rather than black ...
The Wonderful City
Not rated yet
Yes, that's Rio de Janeiro. ;)
I took this one with my cell phone at university. I study in Niterói, that is just in the other side of the Guanabara ...
Big Rhonda
Not rated yet
My Great Dane puppy checking out the scenery through our patio window .....
Taken with a Canon EOS 30D.
This is a lovely shot - this sort of wistful ...
Flower profile
Not rated yet
This photo was taken in color with natural lighting.
It was edited to black & white with photo software.
It's interesting how, such a colourful ...
Boundries
Not rated yet
I took this one day out in a field by my house.
The only editing I did to it was changing the color mode to grey scale and lab color. I liked the old ...
Palm Tree
Not rated yet
I wanted to take a nice shot of this palm tree. I took this one, against the sun, making it a silhouette.
The original blue sky didn't look as good ...
Alone?
Not rated yet
One among the numerous photos I took of our models.
I kind of like this shot - mainly because it was unintended - the model was not aware I was taking ...
Innocent
Not rated yet
This is my little girl and I was just clicking away and was able to get what I think is a pretty good profile portrait.
I love it, but after looking ...
Natures music
Not rated yet
One of my first ones in this field.
Canon EOS 30D+ Sigma 18-125
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/7.1
We're unsure of the reason behind ...
San Telmo, Buenos Aires
Not rated yet
This is a shot taken at historical square "San Telmo", in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The square is filled with turn of the XXth century constructions,...
Misty Woods
Not rated yet
Taken at Cally Woods in Wordsley Nr Stourbridge, West Midlands; with a Canon EOS300D SLR & Sigma 70-300mm Telephoto zoom lens.
Originally in colour,...
Just waking up
Not rated yet
Taking some pics of my dog as she was dozing on the loveseat. She woke up long enough to get a good frontal shot.
I just used Picassa to make it black ...
Light at the end of the tunnel
Not rated yet
Easley Covered Bridge - Oneonta, Al
Nikon D40
2007/10/15 11:53:48.6
JPEG (8-bit) Normal
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
Black & White
Lens: 18-...
Covered Bridge Texture
Not rated yet
Coldwater Covered Bridge, Anniston, GA
Nikon D40
2007/10/16 12:14:21.1
JPEG (8-bit) Normal
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
Black & White
Lens: 18-...
Relaxation
Not rated yet
Another shot from Crete Using the Pentax optio s7
The human form has always been appealing subject matter for photographers. Done correctly it can ...
Covered Bridge
Not rated yet
Photo taken just after a rainy morning at Watson Mill State Park outside of Comer ,GA
Nikon D40
2007/12/23 11:37:07.3
JPEG (8-bit) Normal
Image Size:...
TOES
Not rated yet
Taken on the beach Crete Greece June 07. The Toes are my wife's.
Steph's photo is a great example of black and white photography. It has really good ...
the evening sky
Not rated yet
Took this colourfully lit evening sky in black and white with my Sony DSC s90 compact digital. Exposure time 1 second.
Shots like this can look great ...
Further reading . . .
Now you have an understanding of black and white digital photography, you might find the following pages worth a read:
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