Get the best Black & White you can

Just thought of sharing a small post-processing tip… We’ve all enjoyed looking at a nice black and white photograph. And we’ve all tried our own attempts at taking a B&W photo.. But they don’t always come out as nice or dramatic as we want. May it be taken using the B&W mode on a camera or a photograph converted to B&W in post-processing, its not as easy as it would seem. Instead of the contrasting black and white we sometimes end up with a unclear grayscale photo. So how can one fix this?

Firstly, do NOT take on-camera black and white. The reason is, when done on-camera the camera simply takes every colour and maps it to its respective grayscale value. So may it be a 50% blue or a 50% red they’ll both end up blending into each other. Let me demonstrate.. Save this image of the block of colours and open them in even a simple photo-editing software such as even MS paint or MS photo-editor. Now turn it into grayscale………. (take a break go do that, and come back ) Amazing isn’t it? And THAT is why you should not photograph in B&W on camera. So different and vibrant in reality but so similar in grayscale.

So how can you fix this?  If you are a Adobe Photoshop user you might already know this. But if you’re not, Adobe Photoshop allows you to choose the strength of each color’s grayscale individually. This would let you differentiate between colors by increasing or decreasing a color’s brightness. And Bravo! You have yourself a good B&W photo.