man & nature # 66 ~ learning curve, pt. 2
Monday, October 27, 2008 at 10:24AM 
2 pcitures about different things • click to embiggenWhile I am puttering around with various methods of color>bw conversion methods, the real "learning curve" with which I am puttering around is whether I really want to invest the time and mental energy (not to mention printing equipment changes) that it requires to make good BW pictures.
First, let me dispense with the conversion method stuff. When it comes to color>bw conversion (as with virtually anything thing else you might care to mention), Photoshop offers plenty of different methods to arrive at the same result (today's BW picture was converted using a BW Adjustment Layer). As far as I am concerned you should use the one (or a combination of different ones) that works for you. And, I might add, the digital darkroom work on an image doesn't end with the conversion - at least for me, there's plenty left to do post-conversion in order to fine-tune the picture to get where I want to go with it.
FYI, this is no different from my color work - after my RAW conversion, I still expend quite a bit of time and effort in working the image.
But, as I stated, these concerns are not my primary focus regarding the "learning curve" involved in making BW pictures. Without a doubt, the issue with which I am most concerned is that regarding the very nature of color pictures vs. BW pictures. Without wanting to sound as though I am stating the very obvious (which I am), it seems to me that, even when picturing the same referent, color pictures and BW pictures are "about" very different things.
Again, stating the very obvious and on the surface of things, color pictures are very much about, duh, color. BW pictures, on the other hand, are very much about tonal relationships and, to a slightly lesser extent, tonal range. IMO, the significance of this fundamental difference between the genres of color / BW for my picturing is that, for the viewer, color helps create a better connection to the real than the tonal representation of BW does.
Simply stated, color seems "real" while BW seems, well ... surreal.
With that statement, I am NOT endorsing the misinformed digital-age opinion found on most online photo forums that BW is an "effect". That, after the fact of picturing, one can decide whether a picture looks "better" as a color picture or as a BW picture. IMO, that way of thinking / picturing totally ignores the fact that BW picturing is a specific genre of the medium which requires a devotion to and ongoing commitment to a way of expressing what one sees.
That said, the one major paradigm shift that the digital age has brought to BW picturing is that one can merrily picture away without having to deal with the moment - of - picturing requirements of deciding what technique to use in order to achieve a "visualized" print result. Those who have no BW analog picturing experience really have no understanding and appreciation of what a demanding skill set successful BW required.
It might be an overstatement, but not much of one, to state that the successful making of good BW pictures, pre-digital, depended entirely upon what one did at the moment of making an exposure - how one exposed a sheet / frame of film determined how one processed that film, which in turn determined on what contrast grade of paper one printed the image. What filter one used (if any) determined what tonal values of significant elements of a picture would exhibit.
Those ultra dark Ansel Adams skies found in many of his prints might have been helped along by some judicious burning-in in the darkroom but it was the use of a filter - the ever popular Kodak Wratten Red No. 25 - that was responsible for the look. And those autumn-yellow polar leaves that just seemed to glow and pop off the surfaces of his prints - thank you very much Kodak Wratten Filter Yellow No. 12.
Unless you are a film "purist" there is no need for any of that stuff now. You can picture merrily away in color and apply the virtual filter of your choice in post-picturing digital darkroom processing.
Caveat: Don't even begin to think that after-the-fact BW conversion / processing requires any less "knowledge" than that of the good 'ole analog film days. Unless all you are interested in is moving sliders around until you get something that looks good - kinds like applying an "effect" - there is much to know and understand about the process and tools involved in making good BW pictures.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Anil Rao wrote: "The vignetting in the b&w version seems much stronger (than the color one). I realize that you employ darkerned corners to convery a particular manner of seeing. So is the added darkness in the corners deliberate or just a oversight from the conversion process"?
my response: Good eye, Anil. I wondered if anyone would notice the darker vignette.
One of things that I have learned is that I can not make conversions from my finished color files for just such a reason as you have noticed. The emphasis placed on my vignetted corners in my color pictures is usually rather subtle and I want it to be so in any BW pictures that I may create. To that end I have learned that I must perform my BW conversions on my files before I add my border and vignette.
Reader Comments (5)
I know there are some new comers to the site, so I want to remind all of one of the basic rules for commenting:
DO NOT ENCOURAGE ANY IDEA THAT REQUIRES THE PURCHASE OF NEW EQUIPMENT.
Thank you for you cooperation.
Thanks Mark you have answered my question.
Mark, you need a new dedicated B&W printer to really make this pursuit worth your efforts! (I am now going into hiding until the lovely mrs Hobson forgets that I mentioned this)
Hi Mark,
The vignetting in the b&w version seems much stronger (than the color one). I realize that you employ darkerned corners to convery a particular manner of seeing. So is the added darkness in the corners deliberate or just a oversight from the conversion process?
Don't believe what anyone says, you do not need a dedicated black and white printer to make phenomenal black and white prints. I have dedicated the last few years to black and white photography (the analog kind), and print on an Epson R2400 with the standard Epson inks. If you do the work up front to know your materials, that basic combination will work woners.