Color

[Bill Pierce]

Black-and-white was the choice for for a lot of shooters who wanted to make their own prints in a wet darkroom. Face it, anybody willing to use several sheets of paper to fine tune a final print, could probably beat the print quality of most commercial labs who wanted to keep expenses down and profits up by using as few sheets of paper as possible. And color printing with its critical temperature control was beyond the darkroom capabilities of many folks and a pain in the tail for those who could exercise the control. And many of the local controls that made for excellent prints in b&w weren’t available in color printing, especially if the original was a transparency.

But, with digital photography, the situation is reversed. Most of the time it’s easier to make a color print or even a color jpg to be shared on the web or in email. Much of the time producing black-and-white digital photography involves extra steps converting an original color image especially if you want to mimic the tonal distribution of film. And let’s face it, that snapshot of the new puppy or the birthday party often benefits from color. Among my friends, and myself, I see the wet darkroom photographers turned digital darkroom photographers producing more and more of their images in color rather than black-and-white.

I made my living shooting news in color. Indeed, the magazine I worked for the most billed itself as “the colorful newsweekly.” But I had come up under Gene Smith and my favorite non-news photographers were Richard Avedon and Irving Penn; so, naturally I thought if you were serious and an artist, you shot black-and-white. And I did that whenever possible and was not above converting color images to black-and-white for exhibits. My grandchildren, who have grown up in a world of color movies, color television and color digital photography where only antique images are in black-and-white probably think I am an antique. I’m changing.

Digital photography has certainly increased the number of pictures taken and seen, the great, great majority of them in color. It allows easily produced and controlled color images. Does it make it more possible for you to produce serious, artistic or just plain “good” color pictures?

 

[Richard G]

No. Colour photography is different to black and white and making a good coherent colour photograph is harder than black and white I think. As a photojournalist reporting newsworthy stuff in colour is obvious from a record point of view and it's the same with holiday snaps and casual pictures of the children. A prominent family member will usually lament a good photo tragically captured only in black and white.

But an eye trained to look for light and form doesn't also see colour with the same eye. I recently was looking at Alex Webb and Fred Herzog. They see very differently in the colour photographs they produce. I can do it sometimes, but the whole approach is different. When I'm out with the M9 I may see the colour that is the dominant element for a shot or I might even be deliberately seeking a particular colour theme, two or three colours, pastel only, but mostly I'm still just seeing in black and white. Many colour photographs are messy and distracting until the colour is removed. A beautiful summer evening with golden hour warm low sun might offer a photograph that captures that warm Kodacolor moment but it will lack the punch of a black and white with other qualities that needs no colour finery. The emotion of a picture which comes from the colour is harder to see and produce.

 

[farlymac]

I'm still working at getting good color shots from my digital cameras. Unlike with film, where you load the parameters each time you change a roll, with digital you have to remember to go through all the settings to match them to the situation at hand, and that's where I fall down mostly.

I don't like shooting film color on cloudy days, but it's more a factor of the film I'm using. And I'll be somewhere getting a great shot in b&w, then wish I had brought a camera loaded with color to capture something that just does not translate well into monochrome. But with the digital cams I don't worry about any of that, because as you say, Bill, it can all be switched in post. It's more a matter of convenience than actually planning it that way.

PF

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I think, I already wrote it here. I use my 8MP Panasonic P&S for BW as is. No time involved. It is one of the best digital bw I have seen. $40 P&S with great BW SOOC is hard to believe, I know. 🙂

In addition to it I have now M-E which is capable of filmish SOOC BW @1600-2500 ISO. No or almost no processing is needed.

ISO400 M-E BW on the left, ISO400 bw film on the right.

IMO, if you like digital BW, instead of "producing" you might be better served by finding digital camera with BW conversion which required no or minimum PP. For example, I don't like Canon DSLRs BW of any kind, but I like Leica Q BW SOOC.
And digital BW is not different from digital color. You just have to find digital camera which does good color. Or BW... Sometimes it does both 🙂

Printing of bw image from computer is as simple as possible process. Check "grey only". This is it.

I started with color positive film. We called it "ORWO slide" in USSR. I choose it because I didn't have any space for darkroom.
Decades later I finally get some space and jumped on bw film in no time. One day I was filming veterans parade. Local consul noticed me with camera, same consul who was using my color pictures on his campaign booklet. He asked me for pictures. I proudly told him what I switched to bw film and send pictures. He never asks again...

Now I like to use digital color for family pictures and for pictures of goodies I'm selling on ebay. It works, some times...

 

[charjohncarter]

I've worked hard to get my hybrid processes fine tuned. I do color negative and the occasional transparencies. Then these are scanned and fine tuned in more than one editing program. These are sent to a commercial lab for printing. I still prefer scanning to straight digital color. I suppose I could get what I want eventually with an all digital process but for now I'll stick to my method.

Color vs B&W (I do both) is difficult I can't tell ahead of time which photos I'll like in which genre. In these cases digital would be a better choice.

 

[Dogman]

I think we're long past the time when color photography was just considered "commercial" and "vulgar", to use a couple of the descriptions from the past. Today color is certainly serious and artistic. Shooting digitally has absolutely made it possible for me to make high quality color prints at home.

What I find surprising is that I'm now shooting more in digital B&W. Maybe it's a new challenge, maybe I'm just my wanting to do something against the current trends.

 

[Ronald M]

I'm still working at getting good color shots from my digital cameras. Unlike with film, where you load the parameters each time you change a roll, with digital you have to remember to go through all the settings to match them to the situation at hand, and that's where I fall down mostly.

I don't like shooting film color on cloudy days, but it's more a factor of the film I'm using. And I'll be somewhere getting a great shot in b&w, then wish I had brought a camera loaded with color to capture something that just does not translate well into monochrome. But with the digital cams I don't worry about any of that, because as you say, Bill, it can all be switched in post. It's more a matter of convenience than actually planning it that way.

PF

My leicas and Nikons have presets for daylight, tungsten, flash, K, ISO

set up the ones you want and dial them in as conditions change. You do not need to wait until the card is full !!

 

[shawn]

My leicas and Nikons have presets for daylight, tungsten, flash, K, ISO

set up the ones you want and dial them in as conditions change. You do not need to wait until the card is full !!

If you are shooting raw you don't even need to set those (or use auto). Just shoot a white or gray card as a WB reference point and then use that to set WB in post.

Shawn

 

[Bill Pierce]

As a photojournalist reporting newsworthy stuff in colour is obvious from a record point of view.

Richard -

A silly sidebar - The introduction and increasing use of color pages in the news magazines was, in part, the desire to sell more color advertizing.

 

[Jake Mongey]

Color is now the dominant format for the reason that most non photographers I know will be confused as to why I wouldn't shoot color -I mean the camera shows us reality. However many photographers often aim to depart from reality my taking what the scene shows and manipulating with different tones etc. which means the photographer will choose what type of image records the scene better. This is often down to preference and some people prefer black and white as opposed to colour however the idea that colour cant be used at art is now completely gone in my eyes as almost every image you see in magazines is in colour and you dont think "why isnt it in BW".

Colors place as an artistic medium has been secured by the invention of digital and future generations will grow up with this appreciation whereas when it was introduced it was anew idea and despite photographers like lartigue showing the auto-chrome process in his work the change in newspapers from BW to colour meant the art world saw it as a commerical medium. However, now most people dont remember the change it is a normal thing and thus can be used as art.

No idea if that makes any sense but thats my rather rambled thoughts

 

[maggieo]

I don't think that digital has made it easier for me to make good color photographs, maybe because I always shot 'chromes and had cibas done by a lab.

If it's made any difference, it's allowed me to practice my craft more, since the financial limitations have, for everyday shooting, been lifted.

As for printing, I seem to go through as many workprints as I did when I was doing B&W in my darkroom.

For each print you see in the photo below, there are anywhere from 3-15 workprints before them. I'm printing for a show, so I'm being extra picky and obsessive, but there's a genuine familiarity to the work.


Work Prints, April 05, 2017 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

 

[ForestCap]

I like colour. When I want black and white, I convert the colour images into 8-bit gray-scale.

Scanned and digitally printed from Kodak Proimage 100, Ektar 100, and Fujicolor C200.

The sad thing to me is that today if you want a photo sold, you have to crank up the saturation and contrast. BW or colour alike.

 

[peterm1]

When I first got seriously into photography I began shooting a lot of black and white. Mainly I used film which utilized the C41 color process like Ilford XP2 as it was cheap and easy to get processed, plus it could produce very pleasant results. But that was in the days of film of course.

When digital came along and I eventually made the change, powerful image editing software became available so I more or less naturally began shooting in color then converting to black and white afterwards in post processing. At that time no digital camera really handled black and white well although many offered the option. (Although the Panasonic L1 did a pretty good job when it came along about a decade back as it had variable black and white settings that gave considerable latitude which allowed you to influence the final result.)

But after a while I discovered that I enjoyed leaving my images in color - not as they came from the camera, however. I always work them over in post processing to get a result I am happy with. I kind of liked slightly desaturated but still colorful images with high contrast that gave the sots a particular "look" and I stuck with this deciding to make that "my style". These shots often also have some deliberately induced reflections off or through windows, combined with some flare and diffusion to selectively soften the images. It just happens to be a style I like to work in.

Now 90% of my shots are of this type. Most of the balance are "standard" color - more oftan landscapes and the like - and only a few photos are processed into black and white - I have found that a few images seem not to work in color (just as some do not work in black and white) and so if I reach a dead end with an image I otherwise like I will often then experiment with converting it to black and white. But these days that is the exception.

The following is an example of the kind of color street shot I like making. Whether it is "serious" art or not is up to the viewer. As for me I just do it because it satisfies me.

Through a Glass, Darkly by Life in Shadows, on Flickr

 

[farlymac]

My leicas and Nikons have presets for daylight, tungsten, flash, K, ISO

set up the ones you want and dial them in as conditions change. You do not need to wait until the card is full !!

Well, I'm still kind of learning all the gadgetry of the cameras, as I mostly shoot film. So I'm not comfortable yet with picking settings, and assigning them to a Function button. And I tend to forget to do certain things, like checking what I had it set for previously.




"If you are shooting raw you don't even need to set those (or use auto). Just shoot a white or gray card as a WB reference point and then use that to set WB in post.

Shawn"

I'd love to shoot raw, but my computer is not capable of running the programs needed to view and convert the files. And my current digi cams (2xD80) don't shoot in monochrome, unlike the previous one (P7700). They want to convert it in camera after the fact, which I'd prefer not to.

PF

 

[maggieo]

Now 90% of my shots are of this type. Most of the balance are "standard" color - more oftan landscapes and the like - and only a few photos are processed into black and white - I have found that a few images seem not to work in color (just as some do not work in black and white) and so if I reach a dead end with an image I otherwise like I will often then experiment with converting it to black and white. But these days that is the exception.

With my Cuba series, that was very much true for me. Only a few photos needed to be in B&W. So few, that they won't be in the show. Oddly enough, they're mostly of dancers.


Dancers, Club, Havana, February 11, 2017 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr


Dancers, Havana, February 16, 2017 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr


Dancers, Havana, February 16, 2017 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr


Mojito, Havana, February 11, 2017 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

BTW, the Cuba prints are as close to straight Kodachrome as I could make 'em. Havana is just that colorful.

 

[shawn]

I'd love to shoot raw, but my computer is not capable of running the programs needed to view and convert the files. And my current digi cams (2xD80) don't shoot in monochrome, unlike the previous one (P7700). They want to convert it in camera after the fact, which I'd prefer not to.

PF

What are the specs on your computer? There are many raw converters out there and many/most should be able to work with D80 files. Should be something available that could run on your computer.

No color digital camera shoots monochrome RAW files. The RAW file is the raw sensor data from the camera which includes color info.

Shawn

 

[willie_901]

If you are shooting raw you don't even need to set those (or use auto). Just shoot a white or gray card as a WB reference point and then use that to set WB in post.

Shawn

This is what I do. I use auto WB so in-camera previews are good enough.

When a gray card is not practical, any object in the image you know to be white or gray can be adequate.

The other advantage with raw is selective color temperature adjustment. With many post-production platforms it is simple to use different color temperature parameters for regions lit by different typees of light. Sometimes this can also be done using in-camera JPEGs, but raw files work better as the difference between color temperatures increases.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Helen Levitt slideshow: https://www.lensculture.com/article...vitt-new-york-streets-1938-to-1990s#slideshow

 

[lynnb]

I don't think digital makes it more possible for me to produce serious, artistic or just plain “good” color pictures. It's just different. On one hand I have a lot more control over hue, tint and saturation working with RAW files. That's good. On the other, I can choose a colour film based on the look I'm after (mostly that's either Portra or Ektar) and then scan so I'm working with a digital file that can still be manipulated in Lightroom/Photoshop. So the starting points are different, but the end point is I'm working with a digital file.

There's a difference between the look of digital capture and film, despite the use of film emulation software presets. In the end the choice is aesthetic, and also practical. Provided one sets a manual white balance, the entirely digital workflow has great efficiencies in batch processing for jobs like weddings.

 

[cz23]

Thanks for that, Peter. I looked up Levitt's color work as well after Helen's post. It would be pretty difficult to approximate her color look with today's digital technology, assuming one wanted to.

I find color very difficult -- both capture and printing. I don't know how to explain it, but there has to be something distinctive about a color photograph for it to work for me. I feel I take one occasionally, but it's pretty rare. I admire those who do it consistently.

Same goes for printing; another level of complication over B&W for me. Personally, I think digital has made it harder. So many color films had real character, like my favorite back in the day - Agfachrome. About every year or so I pledge to do a color project, but I invariably revert to B&W. If you calibrate and can post-process well enough, Epson's ABW makes the rest pretty easy.

Here's one I like a lot. Like I said, they don't come frequently. But maybe that's a challenge worth undertaking.

John