Best Road to B&W

[bmccoy]

So as I was looking at Squirl's post I got to thinking, what is better, use the B&W capture mode of the FZ3 or just do the conversion from color in PSP 9? It seems both will give good results, but is there any advantage to letting the camera do it? If not then is that just one of those "features" that doesn't really matter:?

Here is a sample of a B&W as when using the FZ3 in that mode. I adjusted levels a little bit and resized.

-Brett

[Hards80]

the advantage to shooting b&w in camera is that you get to compose the image in black and white, which can help you with your exposure, comp etc..

the advantage to converting in PS is more control.. if you have not yet learned to use it effectively.. learn the Channel Mixer, it will give you tons of control over your conversions and is easy to learn.. just make sure they all add up to 100% and experiment away!! (with the monochrome box checked of course)..

-dustin

[bmccoy]

Hards80 wrote:

the advantage to shooting b&w in camera is that you get to compose the image in black and white, which can help you with your exposure, comp etc..

the advantage to converting in PS is more control.. if you have not yet learned to use it effectively.. learn the Channel Mixer, it will give you tons of control over your conversions and is easy to learn.. just make sure they all add up to 100% and experiment away!! (with the monochrome box checked of course)..

-dustin

Interesting point. Now I just need to figure out what equates to the PS channel mixer in paint shop pro, seeing as that is the program I do my editing in.

-Brett

[José A.]

The pic looks good to me, but the advantage of postprocessing is that you have definitely more control. For instance, in Photoshop (sorry I don't know anything about Paint Shop Pro) you can use the "Hue - Saturaiton - Brightness" control and individually (red, green, blue channels) change the luminance of different zones in the image. If it was a photograph directly taken in B&W, a luminance change would affect the whole image - unless you started making selections.

I'd say shoot in colour & postprocess, unless the file size difference is really significant.

[bmccoy]

José A. wrote:

The pic looks good to me, but the advantage of postprocessing is that you have definitely more control. For instance, in Photoshop (sorry I don't know anything about Paint Shop Pro) you can use the "Hue - Saturaiton - Brightness" control and individually (red, green, blue channels) change the luminance of different zones in the image. If it was a photograph directly taken in B&W, a luminance change would affect the whole image - unless you started making selections.

I'd say shoot in colour & postprocess, unless the file size difference is really significant.

Thanks for the input. As for the file size with the limited testing I've done they seem to still be about the same size as the color pics.

-Brett

[Will.Blaschko]

I think most modern cameras still encode even black and white pictures as color JPGs, so the size should be about the same... but correct me if I'm wrong.

[Hards80]

bmccoy wrote:

Hards80 wrote:

Interesting point. Now I just need to figure out what equates to the PS channel mixer in paint shop pro, seeing as that is the program I do my editing in.

-Brett

sorry, i wish i could help you out here.. i have never used Paintshoppro.. you may ask them in the image editing forum.. someone there may know the equivelence..

[Hards80]

actually paint shop pro does have channel mixer and it works the same way..

go to Adjust > Color Balance > Channel Mixer

click the monochrome box.. and then play with the sliders.. making sure they equal 100% or you will adjust the exposure..

if you want to adjust the exposure you can slide around the constant..

http://www.corel.com/content/pdf/pai...88colorize.pdf

page 5


-dustin

[Bootneck2]

Beautiful pictures - pity they grow up to be teenagers

[Ivan Karamasov]

Hi Brett,

nice pic. Have you tried picasa (from google) yet?. It is a very easy to use image-viewer but also offers some nice tools (also easy to use) for p.p. One thing I especially like about it is the filtered b&w effect. You just click on it and a color palette opens immediately. While you move the cursor over the palette, the b&w filter changes the image in real-time. This may be a little more primitive than photoshop, but the simplicity and the fact that the programm is free are significant advantages for me.
Of course you have to take the picture in color-mode to use the filters effectively.

Here comes an example of how much the filter influences the outcome:
this is a green parrot in a cage. the feathers on its forehead are red and yellow. The beak is white
filtered with green, the feathers look bright, the eyes look dull