Godfrey
somewhat colored
Said another way, printing from a raw file (presuming the printing application can understand the file format) would involve that the printing application do the raw conversion and apply whatever adjustments/calibrations/etc were appropriate. That puts the raw to RGB processing conversion back in the hands of the camera or printing application, and out of the photographer's hands.
At which point, you might as well use whatever in-camera B&W image processing settings you like and print from the JPEGs ... I bet the results would be identical. ;-)
G
(Another way that this is done occasionally, with big hits to image quality, is that the printing application simply extracts the in-camera JPEG preview from the raw file and prints that. Again, no reason to print this way rather than just used the camera's JPEG rendering for B&W that you like in the first place.)
thegman
Veteran
Obviously RAW is more flexible, but I think there is a charm just to shooting B&W "in camera", and you just use what you have. If you blow the highlights, it's a learning experience. I think reducing complexity is often a good idea, and I would probably just shoot B&W in camera.
hipsterdufus
Photographer?
RAW+JPEG. Best of both worlds. If you have to pick just one of the two, then pick RAW. I like starting with as much exposure latitude as possible.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
To me, having a wider DR and more image processing overhead provides a simpler shooting experience, which is what I'm after. Whenever you ask the camera to do the rendering for you, you have to monitor what the camera's doing more tightly, which asks for more of your attention when shooting—exactly when I don't want my attention to be distracted.
I've gotten to the point where I understand my digital cameras' capture behavior well enough so that I can just make exposure adjustments while shooting the same way I do when I know a particular film and development process well. Raw capture makes my shooting experience virtually identical to shooting with film.
G
dfatty
Well-known
a lot of cameras allow you to save both a raw file and a jpeg b&w for each photo. some cameras have nice jpeg output (like the ricoh mentioned above) that's quite good, which may be good enough. but if you also have the raw on hand you are able to manipulate it yourself to see if you can better the jpeg. try it a few times and decide if it's worth it to save the raws. i like having raws even if i end up using the jpeg, but it does take up space to save them all.
teleparallel
Established
Ed Weatherly
Established
Sorry, I missed the second post. Mine was not meant to be argumentative either, just pointing out my opinion and workflow. Hope that's the way it was recieved.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Raw, no question. The amount of tonal shifting needed to get a GOOD (not the flat gray ugliness most people think is a good BW conversion) conversion requires starting with RAW.
Messsucherkamera
Established
If you want to shoot B&W, you could pick up a good user M4 or M4-P for about $750 U.S., a 50/2.8
Elmar M for about $500 (which by all accounts is a great little lens) and some Tri-X for $4.29/roll.
Just sayin'...
Elmar M for about $500 (which by all accounts is a great little lens) and some Tri-X for $4.29/roll.
Just sayin'...
back alley
IMAGES
mike rosenlof
Insufficient information
shoot raw because you can emulate different color filters in the way you mix down to monochrome. Your PC probably doesn't have the compromises or the time constraints for jpg conversion that your camera probably has.
Ed Weatherly
Established
I have a question. What do you do with two files? I shot that way for a very short time and found I had RAW files to work on, then jpegs and I felt they cluttered up the hard drives. Now I shoot in RAW and process in PS5 and Lightroom 4 and then just output as highest quality jpeg (for printing) and lower quality small jpegs for web viewing.
daveleo
what?
What you end up with (taking the various process paths to a B&W print) depends on your PP level of expertise and your "eye" for taking your image to (whatever you call) "perfection". There is no one best process path to take. Comparing images that come out of the various processes doesn't mean that you (or I) could get there even taking the same path.
You just have to find what works best for you.
I shoot color jpgs and convert manually to B&W, and I'm happy. I tried RAW but always end up (to my eye) with the same result that I get out of tweaking jpgs, and I tried in-camera B&W and I don't like it.
To each his own, huh !
Godfrey
somewhat colored
LR pulls over both files and imports both, or just the raw, depending on how you set the options. The original files sit where you told LR to put them ... They're not cluttering up anything unless you're poking about in the file system rather than editing them in LR or PS through the "Edit in Photoshop" command.
G
peterm1
Veteran
I always shoot RAW and then convert in post processing. It gives more options and with it also gives better quality. This depneds a little on how your camera processes JPGs to produce black and white. (Most just abandon 2 of the 3 color channels and use the remaining one to produce the mono result). If I post process I can select which ever color channel I like - which is like having the freedom of using a glass color filter jsut like we used to in the film world. Having said this I have a Panasonic L1 which allows me to shoot black and white in camera and has three (or is it four?) different filter options / settings. This gives great flexiblity so for example in portraits a light green flter always gives nice skin tomes and in landscapes a red or orange filter often works best. Having said that shooting in JPG always produces an image with less information than an image shot in RAW as someone else pointed out - its the difference between the 8 bit and the 14 bit images.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
The best black and whites I get from my RD-1s seem to be when I shoot in raw then select the monochrome setting in the Epson raw converter and export them as tiffs for final post processing in ACDSee. The black and white setting in the camera is definitely inferior in its final output compared to this method.
Out of curiosity Joe what was your black and white work flow before you went all high tech and abandoned your poor little Epsons?
Out of curiosity Joe what was your black and white work flow before you went all high tech and abandoned your poor little Epsons?
back alley
IMAGES
The best black and whites I get from my RD-1s seem to be when I shoot in raw then select the monochrome setting in the Epson raw converter and export them as tiffs for final post processing in ACDSee. The black and white setting in the camera is definitely inferior in its final output compared to this method.
Out of curiosity Joe what was your black and white work flow before you went all high tech and abandoned your poor little Epsons?
i shot in raw only...converted to b&w using the 'urban' preset in pse...then i used levels and a little unsharp mask...
Sylvester
Well-known
I would never shoot jpgs... anyway
Shooting raw or at least colour jpgs will allow you to decide the tonality of each colour, just like you would with filters in the film days.
Shooting raw or at least colour jpgs will allow you to decide the tonality of each colour, just like you would with filters in the film days.
kxl
Social Documentary
However, the Monochrom doesn't have a color filter array in front of the sensor, so there is no need to combine color information from adjacent pixels (demosaicing). So the Monochrom retains higher levels of detail.
robert blu
quiet photographer
It depends on the users experience, personally I like some of the B&W jpgs from my x1 but I like very much to make small adjustment converting the raw files trying to replicate the works I was used to do in the wet darkroom, so many years ago. I mainly do dodging and burning, a little vignetting and a few local corrections. But it is easy to "overprocess" with a "artificial" look if not experienced, in that case better the unprocessed B&W jpg out of camera.
robert
robert