B&W or colour??? Can photoshop decide??

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ulyssescat

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Ok,
I had a conversation recently,well yesterday infact.

I tend to shoot in B&W on my M4-P, while my uncle shoots on a digital Olympus,although he used to shoot Tri-X on an old Pentax.
His view now is 'shoot in colour,then you can change it to B&W if you want, in photoshop.You can't change B&W back to colour.....blah blah'

Anyway,I am not an elitist or anti-digital,I just like shooting in B&W film and getting the prints back from Ilford.But......... does he have a point???
I mean,it seems fairly logical,and its a good point.I love messing about with photoshop,but always used it creatively,or to get special FX rather than just as a means to get B&W from a colour Neg.
After the conversation,I am considering buying a neg/slide scanner for this very reason.

Any views(I know I may have opened a can of worms here)
Discuss...........
 
This comes up from time to time- I like black and white film, too, and I think the desaturated PS method is fine, but there can be a difference.

Desaturating scanned color slide film will give you a result with less detail than you could get with negative film, and I'm beginning to think color negative scans that are converted to B&W may have a little of the same.

I think the loss of dynamic range on digital will also have an effect, but if you're shooting digital already it may not be noticeable.
 
ulyssescat said:
Ok,
I had a conversation recently,well yesterday infact.

I tend to shoot in B&W on my M4-P, while my uncle shoots on a digital Olympus,although he used to shoot Tri-X on an old Pentax.
His view now is 'shoot in colour,then you can change it to B&W if you want, in photoshop.You can't change B&W back to colour.....blah blah'

Anyway,I am not an elitist or anti-digital,I just like shooting in B&W film and getting the prints back from Ilford.But......... does he have a point???
I mean,it seems fairly logical,and its a good point.I love messing about with photoshop,but always used it creatively,or to get special FX rather than just as a means to get B&W from a colour Neg.
After the conversation,I am considering buying a neg/slide scanner for this very reason.

Any views(I know I may have opened a can of worms here)
Discuss...........
Click to expand...
One thing that should be mentioned, is that even though it is only "black and white" film, it is still sensative to the whole spectrum of visible light. So even though the output is in black and white, the input is in color. In fact, different black and white films have different responses to the different parts of the spectrum. Take HIE for an extreme example. Or whenever you use coloured filters with your black and white film. You are modifying the input. This will also modify the output. I will agree, however, that black and white can never be color. That much is true. But colour response does affect the end result.

Drew
 
How about what I do sometimes. I shoot B&W film then get a CD made and then I adjust the image in Photoshop. Usually I just increase the contrast just a little. Also sometimes I scan a 4x6 B&W photo and then adjust the contrast. Now I can also make larger prints-once I've digitized my original B&W images.
 
It's not such a far-fetched idea. Remy (RML) has mentioned a number of times that he shoots iso400 col negative film in his film cameras, and chooses col or B&W depending on which suits the photo better. I've converted some Superia 800 shots to B&W and was surprised how they resembled Tri-X in some ways.

But ... I still prefer the real thing. There's a subtle difference in response and tonality that appeals to me.

Gene
 
Last edited:
Yeh I see what you are all saying.
I guess the best thing to do is embrace the technology rather than fight it.
I do think that colour scans converted to grayscale or whatever, defo do not look as authentic as a print from an original 35mm neg.They can sometimes have a weird cast to them,but thats probably the quality of the scanners I have used in the past.
I am open to it all and I do think the greatest thing about the digital revolution is that everyone can be a photographer.It used to be very elitist,but now......I mean I have seen friends with a natural eye shoot great photos on a mobile phone,and they dont even know they have a natural eye for composition.
I will certainly think about buying a scanner to catalogue my work,but I still need a bit of convincing when it comes to dumping my M4-P completely and shooting in a totally digital domain,plus I need to use up my stock of tri-x.....
 
Oh, hell, don't dump film-despite lots of steam, all the film you shoot today will be able to be scanned with better and better technology in the future.
 
aad said:
Oh, hell, don't dump film-despite lots of steam, all the film you shoot today will be able to be scanned with better and better technology in the future.
Click to expand...

That is a very good point.

I admit that I'm biased toward color, but I agree that it's much easier to convert a color image to B&W than it is the other way around. Photoshop even allows you to experiment with things like a virtual yellow filter to bring out the clouds and such. 🙂
 
I've been shooting more and more color and converting to b&w. It's a very flexible way to shoot. You get 4 different outputs (color, and b&w with 3 different filters). I always prefer b&w film, but shooting color is very useful.

.
 
The answer to the question is very subjective I think. Personally, the major reason I'm using film is because I like the different "flavours". I've not touched my digital SLR (which I also love) for about 4 months because it hasn't offered me this rich palette.

If I could produce an authentic Tri-X style of image from digital + photoshop, I'd probably never buy a roll of Tri-X again, but Tri-X does something I don't understand, and part of the fun of seeing my images come out is the wonderment of what the choice of film/developer has done to the negative (I'm a scanner, no darkroom printing for me).
 
GeneW said:
It's not such a far-fetched idea. Remy (RML) has mentioned a number of times that he shoots iso400 col negative film in his film cameras, and chooses col or B&W depending on which suits the photo better. I've converted some Superia 800 shots to B&W and was surprised how they resembled Tri-X in some ways.

But ... I still prefer the real thing. There's a subtle difference in response and tonality that appeals to me.

Gene
Click to expand...

Indeed I did, and still do with the R-D1.

For years I only shot iso400 colour neg film, scanned the dev'd film and only in PSP I decided to go monochrome/B&W. Often I would already have a pretty good mind about turning a shot into monochrome before I even got the film back from the lab. I anticipated the shot to be monochrome at the time of shooting.

Now with the R-D1 I shoot everything in RAW, so I can choose when I see the shots in the RAW converter software.

Why did/do I so? I feel restricted too much by only shooting B&W. I don't want to carry around 2 cameras (one with B&W film, the other with colour) and I don't want to miss that shot just because I only have the one film with me.

You can see at my _my photo portfolio blog_ what I did/do as I noted the film I was using at the time. Mostly you'll find conversions in the PAW shots in the period before june 2005 but even this ( http://shardsofphotography2.blogspot.com/2006/01/paw-52-2005.html ) and this ( http://shardsofphotography2.blogspot.com/2005/12/paw-49-2005.html ) shot were converted (in the RAW converter).
 
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