Digital BW, The Print

"jackperk" <jackperk@...> writes:

> All,
> 
> I was told once that a useful workflow is to shoot color film to 
> produce B&W prints . . . that that procedure offers more control than 
> shooting B&W originally.
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. Do you agree? What is your experience with such workflow?
> 
> 2. What do you then find the best way to translate the color to B&W? 
> Selecting on of the channels? Blending channels? Using Grayscale? 
> 
> Sure would appreciate any input. TIA.

I fairly often end up rendering B&W results from color originals for
one reason or another.  Chromes aren't the medium of choice for this,
though.  I do it mostly from digital or from color negs. 

If I'm specifically intending B&W for a project, I shoot B&W.
However, if something unexpected turns up when I'm shooting color, or
if I need a bunch of color and one B&W, I'll usually just shoot the
one thing in color and make B&W later and I've been very happy with
the results.

In digital this is even more true -- my digital camera has a B&W
setting but I can't prove it does anything useful; in particular it
doesn't make the files any smaller.  (It does make the R, G, and B
values equal).  (In theory I'd think the software could process the
raw CCD data differently knowing the result was to be B&W, and produce
higher real resolution though not more pixels in the file; but I have
no reason to believe my Epson 850Z actually does this.)

I've also used it when the lighting is so completely wonky that I
can't produce good color out of it (this is often mixed and very low
lighting shot with my digital, whose blue channel produces
mountain-size grain in low tungsten light).

The way to get the best B&W out of a color original with Photoshop is
with the channel mixer.  In extreme cases it's sometimes necessary to
mask and convert different portions different ways.  This lets you get
greyscale renderings you pretty much couldn't do with B&W film, too
(as I see C.D. Tobie has already discussed). 

(Or in Picture Window Pro, the conversion to monochrome lets you
specify an arbitrary filter or a stack of pre-defined ones from their
filter bank.)
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...  /  Ghugle: the Fannish Ghod of Queries
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
        Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/
                 Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/