B&W vs. Color

I can only see one flaw in your plan Jeremy,
sometimes you do want to use true B/W, be it C-41 or not.

Conversion from color to b/w can make you crazy sometimes (you can tell I do this a lot) because you suddenly are presented with choices that need not be there in the first place. As discussed above, there are numerous ways to convert color to b/w with different results.

To me, it's much simpler and no less challenging to shoot with a b/w film to begin with. You will tend to look for different subjects when you consciously knew that you loaded a b/w film in your camera.

I'm not saying don't shoot color, but if you know before hand that you want a series of b/w pictures, use b/w film. Save the conversion for those "Aha" moments when you realize that your color picture could be enhanced by converting it into b/w.
 
I have to agree with you 100%, Shadowfox. I have a very hard time shooting a color negative and getting into the B&W mindset. For me, and each person is different, I approach a subject completely different in color than in black and white. I "borrowed" Photoshop CS from a friend once to see if I would enjoy using a channel mixer to desaturate color images (I can not use a channel mixer on Elements 4.0 ). I did not really enjoy the process, and I could not get my photo's to look right. For me (and again, this is a very personal opinion, and others may certainly disagree) my pictures did not turn out right because they were not taken with a B&W minset. Now matter how close I got, they did not look like a picture I took with B&W film.

I think the biggest reason for this was mental: I did not compose the shot for BW, therefore it did not look good in BW.

If, however, a person can visualize the processes of Photoshoping an image to BW, and compose for it, I am sure that person will have wonderfully beautiful BW prints. I just have a hard time doing it. (Maybe it is because I only attempted it for one roll of film, got frustrated, and never tried Photoshop CS again.
 
I'm pretty frustrated with the fact that most places scan at such low resolution.

I enjoy working with my images on the computer, but it seems like if I want to get it blown up to a fairly large size, I have to be 100% happy with the negative and forget about trying to do any changes, cropping, or color tinting on the computer and just send the negative somewhere. Is this just how it is?

I wish I get get my negatives scanned to a super-high resolution, like almost as high as the actual film is, and that I could get it scanned in RAW, so I won't loose any quality editing. Is there a scanner I could buy that does this?

I mean, Im not planning on printing all my pictures to 30 inches, but Id be disapointed if I got an image I loved on my computer, and couldn't get it printed very big.
 
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To me, working in photoshop or its clones shouldn't be thought of as a chore.

It is the alternative of wet-printing and darkroom post-processing. As far as I know, these two are the only ways to tweak your pictures after it's being captured.

Jeremy, a dedicated film scanner should give you files with enough resolution for large printing. I have several 16x24 inch prints coming out of my Nikon Coolscan.
 
Hey Jeremy,
One option is to develop or have the negatives developed. Then use a loop or inexpensive flatbed to weed out the riff-raff, and then scan or have scanned the keepers at high resolution.
 
I use either my Minolta Dual Scan IV film scanner or my Epson 4870 flatbed; both do a great job with 35mm color films and will give you the resolution to do large prints easily. I use the Epson more often because it can handle medium and large format film as well as 35mm, plus it offers higher physical resolution and supports USB 2.0. Both scanners should be reasonably inexpensive with some searching around.

As far as true black-and-white vs. converted color goes, I usually shoot color film and desaturate as needed. I'd hate to lose a good color photo because I had black-and-white film loaded.
 
What Shadowfox said.

It's not just the look of BW film, it's the mood and compositions and the subjects you choose when you shoot black and white. B&W is a medium on its own and best treated accordingly, don't treat it as a gimmick to save poor color shot. Desaturation is the inverse of hand coloring black and white.. some can do that with great effect (e.g. Teun Hocks), but the rest is total kitsch.
 
shadowfox said:
To me, working in photoshop or its clones shouldn't be thought of as a chore.

It is the alternative of wet-printing and darkroom post-processing. As far as I know, these two are the only ways to tweak your pictures after it's being captured.

Jeremy, a dedicated film scanner should give you files with enough resolution for large printing. I have several 16x24 inch prints coming out of my Nikon Coolscan.
Click to expand...

This is why I started wet printing and enjoy it! I still scan my BW negatives to make a contact sheet, and to have a digtial archive, but that is about it for BW.

I don't mind working with BW photo's in Elements, I just don't like trying to desaturate color into BW photo's. Again, it is a mindset thing from when I first take the picture - I can't trick myself to compose for BW when I am shooting color. And then post-processing is a chore because the composition isn't right.

For color, on the other hand, there I do use Elements to tweak my pictures and get them just right. And I enjoy it.
 
navilluspm said:
This is why I started wet printing and enjoy it! I still scan my BW negatives to make a contact sheet, and to have a digtial archive, but that is about it for BW.

I don't mind working with BW photo's in Elements, I just don't like trying to desaturate color into BW photo's. Again, it is a mindset thing from when I first take the picture - I can't trick myself to compose for BW when I am shooting color. And then post-processing is a chore because the composition isn't right.

For color, on the other hand, there I do use Elements to tweak my pictures and get them just right. And I enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Wow, I wish I have the discipline and the time to do wet-printing. From all I read/heard about it, I'd enjoy it too 😛

Another thing about color to b/w, I think when you've seen enough of your own coor shots, you seem to be cognizant of those particular shots that has the potential of being a great b/w shots.

I hate desaturating also, to me, it's the lazy way 🙂 if I see the potential, I'll go through the trouble of applying "filters", and adjusting the tonality.

This is an example of a color shot that is more powerful when converted "with appropriate effort" into b/w:

398705827_4760327431.jpg


Pardon the blown up highlight, it's the flickr over-sharpening the file. In print, you don't see it.
 
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