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Author Topic: Exposing for B&W digital?  (Read 6359 times)

jwnova1

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Exposing for B&W digital?
« on: August 13, 2016, 11:51:36 am »

I recently started making B&W files from my color files (JPEGS) using Adobe Photoshop Elements 12. Not overwhelmed with my results. Would shooting RAW be better for producing quality B&W files for printing? Any other suggestions for AP Element 12 users?
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Alan Klein

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2016, 12:42:20 pm »

Try NIK software now owned by GOogle. All software is free including Silver Efex Pro which is for BW editing.  It links with Elements, Lightroom. Photoshop.

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

jwnova1

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2016, 04:42:40 pm »

Thanks. I will look into these. Any thoughts about whether shooting RAW instead of JPEG might help?
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Petrus

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2016, 02:48:08 am »

Thanks. I will look into these. Any thoughts about whether shooting RAW instead of JPEG might help?

Of course, gives more latitude in making the "master" from which the B&W conversion is made from.

NIK Silver Effex is a wonderful tool to make conversions. Wide collection of ready made styles which can all be fully adjusted and combined. Of course all the true professional Photoshop wizards detest them, but NIK surely makes the life of a lowly amateur much more enjoyable...
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Telecaster

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2016, 02:20:25 pm »

Go RAW. It'll give you more tonal detail, finer gradation, to work with.

-Dave-
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luxborealis

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2016, 07:19:19 pm »

Raw - definitely and always. And be sure to set the colour space of your camera to AdobeRGB, not sRGB. Shooting raw files in ARGB provides far greater latitude for processing. In other words, you can "play harder" without going out of bounds.

I always liken it to playing tennis with plenty of room around the court to run hard. JPEGs in sRGB, is like having cement walls right at the court boundaries, greatly limiting your swing!

As soon as is practical for you, move away from Elements and into Lightroom as, I believe, Elements is still somewhat limited to only a few functions working in 16-bit colour depth (still important, even with B&W as your files begin as colour files, or, at least should).

BTW, Lightroom has fantastic functionality for creating B&Ws and it can be purchased as a stand-alone, if you prefer not to be locked into Adobe's Creative Cloud leasing system.

Good luck!
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N80

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2016, 09:10:48 am »

BTW, Lightroom has fantastic functionality for creating B&Ws and it can be purchased as a stand-alone, if you prefer not to be locked into Adobe's Creative Cloud leasing system.

Good luck!

True, but read the fine print. It is my understanding that Adobe does not intend to support the individual user license of LR in the future so you'd be in the same boat as former Aperture users. Maybe this has changed but when I was considering this route about a year ago this was the case.

I've used Aperture, LR, Capture One Pro 9, and Silver Efex Pro for B&W conversion. All pretty extensively.

I have found CO and Aperture to be superior in terms of the levels of control you have over tone. Aperture is no longer supported. An individual CO license is very expensive by today's standards and its subscription model is $5 more per month than LR and you do not get PS as you do with the LR subscription.

Having said that, I have not evaluated the pre-set conversions in any of these.
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George

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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2016, 02:22:01 pm »

Raw - definitely and always. And be sure to set the colour space of your camera to AdobeRGB, not sRGB. Shooting raw files in ARGB provides far greater latitude for processing. In other words, you can "play harder" without going out of bounds.

Raw always, I agree; but surely the colour space isn't relevant. A raw "image" is raw data from the sensor. It has no colour space.

And SFX Pro is a truly wonderful tool.

Jeremy
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digitaldog

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2016, 05:32:44 pm »


Ideally you want to stick with the raw data. The JPEG engine that processes the raw massively clips and compresses highlights. We often don't when editing the raw. This compression can clump midtones as much as 1 stop while compressing shadow details! People incorrectly state that raw has more highlight data but the fact is, the DR captured is an attribute of the capture system; it's all there in the raw but maybe not in a camera proceed JPEG.


A raw capture that's 10 or 11 stops of dynamic range can be compressed to 7 stops from this JPEG processing which is a significant amount of data and tonal loss! So when we hear people state that a raw has more DR than a JPEG, it's due to the poor rendering or handling of the data to create that JPEG. The rendering of this data and the reduction of dynamic range is from the JPEG engine that isn't handling the DR data that does exists as well as we can from the raw! Another reason to capture and render the raw data, assuming you care about how the image is rendered!
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GrahamBy

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #9 on: September 08, 2016, 08:12:19 am »

True, but read the fine print. It is my understanding that Adobe does not intend to support the individual user license of LR in the future so you'd be in the same boat as former Aperture users.

I'm not sure what this means. I have the software, it runs on my machine, so I don't see how I need Adobe to "support my user license." Maybe at some stage they'll stop doing updates for new cameras...

But does this fine print exist somewhere, or is it just an internet rumour?
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N80

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #10 on: September 08, 2016, 11:40:17 am »

I'm not sure what this means. I have the software, it runs on my machine, so I don't see how I need Adobe to "support my user license." Maybe at some stage they'll stop doing updates for new cameras...

But does this fine print exist somewhere, or is it just an internet rumour?

I said I was unsure. Not supporting is not supporting. No new camera support. No bug fixes. No upgrades. This would be a similar situation to Aperture. Not hard to understand. Bottom line: do the research. Does that seem like bad advice?

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George

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digitaldog

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #11 on: September 08, 2016, 12:51:13 pm »

I said I was unsure. Not supporting is not supporting. No new camera support. No bug fixes. No upgrades. This would be a similar situation to Aperture. Not hard to understand. Bottom line: do the research. Does that seem like bad advice?
No new direct camera support, but support for them through the free DNG converter. More than you'll get from Aperture in that respect.
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N80

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #12 on: September 08, 2016, 03:06:20 pm »

I spent about 10 minutes on the Adobe LR web page. It does not list purchasing an individual license as an option anywhere that I could find it. When I was researching this a year ago there was still an option on the Adobe site to purchase the individual license with some small print indicating that to some degree LR 6 would be an orphan app. As mentioned, I do not remember the details. But even then it did not seem worth it to me. So, I subscribed even though I hate the idea of software prescriptions (I see it as a complete reversal of the PC revolution of the 1980's).

I'm sure you can find copies of LR 6 to purchase, but again, it would be worthwhile for anyone doing so to understand exactly what they will be getting.
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George

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digitaldog

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2016, 03:36:51 pm »

I'm sure you can find copies of LR 6 to purchase, but again, it would be worthwhile for anyone doing so to understand exactly what they will be getting.
https://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65237578-Photoshop-Lightroom-6/dp/B00VWCKJVA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473363372&sr=8-1&keywords=adobe+lightroom+6


You're getting a perpetual license. Not subscription.
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N80

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George

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digitaldog

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #15 on: September 08, 2016, 05:36:19 pm »

Obviously.
Good, so what else can we help you with?
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N80

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #16 on: September 08, 2016, 08:22:24 pm »

Good, so what else can we help you with?

Not a thing. I did not ask for help. At all. But I appreciate the offer.
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George

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digitaldog

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #17 on: September 08, 2016, 08:25:22 pm »

Not a thing. I did not ask for help. At all. But I appreciate the offer.
OK cool.
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Exposing for B&W digital?
« Reply #18 on: September 08, 2016, 10:12:08 pm »

I recently started making B&W files from my color files (JPEGS) using Adobe Photoshop Elements 12. Not overwhelmed with my results. Would shooting RAW be better for producing quality B&W files for printing? Any other suggestions for AP Element 12 users?

It appears that you're just starting out in this digital photography endeavor. Don't try this right away, but when you get comfortable with raw B&W processing (and you will, if you take this seriously), slip a CC30M filter over your lens; that'll improve your shadow noise when you start simulating filters used with B&W film.

Jim
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