Black & white images

[zax]

Just wondering about the above since I feel like sticking some "arty" black & white shots of little Zax in a frame...

My camera (Canon S60) has a black & white setting that can be used when taking pictures. What is the difference between using this setting and converting a colour image after it's been taken (apart from the obvious - with the 2nd method I'll have both types)? Which would give the best results, all other things being equal?

[Mr Whippy]

Red channel black and whited can often look nice.

Pure B&W often looks rather dull and boring. Red range is on the other hand alot more interesting.

Dave

[mneame]

i always use the b&w setting on my 30d as i feel that it gives better contrast than converting a colour image. i think black and white images can be a lot more striking than colour images. just my opinion though.

[Gemm]

Definitely convert it in post processing. You'll have far better control on everything, particularly the tonal range. But don't just convert it to greyscale, but use channel mixer as you want to be working in 8-bit.

Edited by Gemm on Thursday 22 March 12:44

[V6GTO]

Gemm said:

Definitely convert it in post processing. You'll have far better control on everything, particularly the tonal range. But don't just convert it to greyscale, but use channel mixer as you want to be working in 8-bit.

Agree.

Martin.

[Famous Graham]

I quite like Lightroom's default settings for B&W conversion

[mneame]

Guess i need to do 2 things then:

1) Get the monitor calibrated properly / buy calibration thingamabob
2) Practice, practice, pactice

[Gemm]

Actually I use a Photoshop plugin by FM. It works very well.

www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/BW

There's another one (free!) I occasionally use. I'll post it when I find the link.

[V6GTO]

Photoshop + Scott Kelby/Martin Evening book = all you ever need.

Martin.

[mneame]

Cheers Gemm and V6GTO.

[zax]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll have to get hold of a copy of Photoshop. Currently using the Gimp, but my efforts at manually going b&w using the various colour manipulation functions don't look that much better than simply converting to grayscale. Don't think I have the "eye" for this kind of stuff, even reading through a couple of tutorials on the web I find myself looking at images before and after being subtly tweaked and thinking "so what's the difference"?