Shooting in black & white.

Want a great black & white photo? Shoot it in color!

I teach a class in black and white film photography. Really. People still shoot film. Film has actually had a bit of a resurgence lately, but don’t tell my students. By the end of the semester half of my students want to throw their film cameras into the parking lot. The other half want to go retrieve them.

Most of my film students now process their own film then scan their negatives to edit. We shut down the darkroom with enlargers a couple of semesters ago. But as good as the scanners are, nothing quite compares to shooting digitally in color then converting it in Adobe Photoshop.

This is Adobe Photoshop’s BLACK & WHITE adjustment panel.

Above is the dialog box Adobe Photoshop opens when you start the conversion process to black and white. With those simple sliders you can bring up most any detail or pattern far better than from a black and white negative scanned. The added benefit is that you can make different versions of the edit AFTER shooting, all while retaining the original color file. There are other ways to convert your color shots, this is just likely the most common Adobe solution. Certainly Adobe Lightroom can do the same thing, I just find this method simpler and easier to teach to new students. Take one of your favorite photos into Adobe Photoshop and give it a try using IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>BLACK & WHITE.

Canon R5 with 24-105/4L. Alaska Cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Same ship, different day. Jersey Boys somewhere near Alaska.