Black and White

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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How do you convert digital color images to black-and-white? Almost every image processing program allows to desaturate the color. But if you want to emulate the tonal characteristics of silver film on silver paper, you are going to have to change the curve of the image, compress the shadows and to a lesser extent punch up the highlights. Almost any imaging processing program will let you do this. Add-ons like Silver Efex Pro will tailor the image after the curves of poplar films, and adding a little clarity or mid range contrast will further the silver print effect.

Does emulating a silver print seem important to you when converting digital color to black-and-white or is that just a concern of old people like me trapped in the past? (And if you are trapped in the past, any tips on how you do it?)
 
I create Lightroom or darktable presets that works on a set of color images that was taken in a particular lighting situation.

In darktable, there is a shadow/highlight widget that allows for tone compression without making the image looks like an HDR nightmare. A controlled use of this widget with color-balanced desaturation usually gets me very close to what I need.
 
Topaz Black and White 2.0

Its the best I've tried and one of the least expensive.

ida-apartment-bw.jpg
 
I use Silver Efex a little, but don't like the workflow so much with Lightroom (generation of extra tiff's, lack of a real batch process, and destructive editing), so have some basic b&w profiles set up inside lightroom to help me get a feel for the image in black and white. I probably should have mentioned I shoot everything in raw, so the files I am working with are colour to begin with. That b&w image in lightroom, I use to sort and tag any images with potential, then either play with them in lightroom further until I am happy, or else send them to Silver Efex.

Generally I prefer the Silver Efex conversions, and do add a little 'grain' to give the images a little texture. I should add I also do this with my colour images too, and its personal taste. I'm not sure why I prefer the Silver Efex conversions, I just seem to, but it isn't from a conscious desire to produce a film like image, but rather to get an image/ b&w rendering I like.

I will add, I am generally not into too much post processing, and if I could get an image I was happy from by using a standard profile, I will. Just like I would have if I was shooting film, and chosen a film stock that gave me an aesthetic/ rendering I like. As things stand, this is exactly how I 'develop' my colour files, where I import the raw's into lightroom, apply a standard colour profile I am very happy with, and then just tweak little things like exposure/ white balance/ contrast/ etc, as needed.

Being honest also, if I could get the results I wanted out of the camera, I would seriously think of doing that instead. The only thing that holds me back is that the b&w's out of camera do not please me as much as I would like, and the fact I am a bit spoiled with being able to shoot raw and decide later if I want b&w/ colour/ both from the same file. I do like the b&w options on cameras these days, although I wish camera makers would put a little more effort into their b&w in-camera efforts. The b&w's my little Ricoh GXR gives me seem to be the exception.
 
Used to tweak to film tonality, contrast and gray tones all by hand and eye in Lightroom, but now that I'm about to cross over into Darktable territory, I find myself (again) struggling with this... Maybe I need Lightroom 5 after all...
 
I use the GIMP, which only operates in 8-bit color.
I do not try to emulate film or any printing process.

I tweak the color image until it looks good plus a little punch-up on the saturation and contrast (via the "curves" tool).

Decompose to three independent layers R, G & B.

Tweak opacity of each layer and possibly change a layer mode to "Multiply" - depends on where the image is going.

Flatten the layers.
 
not too concerned to emulate a silver ( or pt ) print... history is relevant but is always seen thru today's eye ( Faulkner aside ). I have used the red channel as the basis for creating a b&w image to some success with very basic post processing tools and skills.

Casey
 
Got pretty good at emulating Tri-X when viewed on a monitor by using a combination of Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro.

Then I tried combining real Tri-X with my emulated Tri-X when printing out a project, and I'm back to square one.

Best,
-Tim
 
I find myself more working to make my film stuff look like it's digital. :) Which is another way of saying that I just try to make my rendition look like the way I want it, what feels best for that shot, within the limitations of what came ahead, and I don't know that this is particularly a "film" or "digital" look. It's the look that the picture demands, as much as I can provide it.

I thought everyone worked that way?
 
I refined my B&W method with tips from the 1973 Leica Manual (bought new), which helped me comprehend the relationship between exposure and contrast. I realized "pushing" wasn't always a solution, at times I had to use a tripod.

I haven't yet tried SilverEFX, I am satisfied with the B&W output of the M9. The 5D2 isn't too bad when I make the effort to fine tune the saturation and dial-in a contrast filter in the camera's menu (yellow is a given, obviously orange and red have the desired effects.)

I would otherwise use Photoshop CS3 (or now, CS5) and shoot a RAW file and go into color channels to adjust levels. Simply desaturating a color file hasn't worked for me.

I learned on silver film, it is my reference.


Bill Pierce said:
How do you convert digital color images to black-and-white? Almost every image processing program allows to desaturate the color. But if you want to emulate the tonal characteristics of silver film on silver paper, you are going to have to change the curve of the image, compress the shadows and to a lesser extent punch up the highlights. Almost any imaging processing program will let you do this. Add-ons like Silver Efex Pro will tailor the image after the curves of poplar films, and adding a little clarity or mid range contrast will further the silver print effect.

Does emulating a silver print seem important to you when converting digital color to black-and-white or is that just a concern of old people like me trapped in the past? (And if you are trapped in the past, any tips on how you do it?)
Click to expand...
 
I use Silver Efex Pro 2 as a LR 5.2 plug-in. This works really well for me. LR alone works fine for a quick evaluation, but for me Silver Efex Pro 2 makes a difference.

This year I did some Tri-X simulation. But in the end I wasn't comfortable emulating analog photography. This is purely a subjective, personal choice. Of course I enjoy the work of others who use this approach.

I like to print using MPIX's "True Black & White Photo Paper". Someday I will get my act together and try more expensive on-line print services and try paper such as Canson Infinity, Rag Photographique, Edition Etching Rag, BFK Rivess, and Baryta Photographique.
 
I shoot film as well as digital, so I don't quite feel the pressure that fully digital photographers may feel to make their black and white pictures with the traditional film characteristics. That said however, I often shoot with the iPhone app called Hipstamatic. It does good job of simulating film, but it's a very idiosyncratic camera. It looks like this:
IMG_0921.jpg
 
I use the monochrome output from my Sigmas then adjust curves, contrast etc in ACDSee Pro 6.
 
VSCO and Lightroom .... VSCO with almost instant rendering of the applied effect ,no round tripping to external software is fast and efficient . Also the effects can be adjusted using the control panel in LightRoom ,easily reset,copied and applied to other images etc.

Silver Efex and VSCO are both excellent at what they do .... as for emulating film the presets are just names of different looks to be applied to a digital file ...
for myself there is no connection between the name of the preset and my trying to emulate that particular film look ..... just a starting point and an easy name to remember .
 
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