Converting photos to B&W
Black and white photographs are timeless pieces that capture the essence of a person, an animal, a passion, or simply a piece of beautiful or poignant scenery. People who are not familiar with photography or are new to it often mistakenly believe that black and white photographs are a thing of the past, falling along the wayside as time passes on just like Sony Walkmans and polaroid cameras. But the opposite couldn’t be more true! Even in an age where technology makes it easy for anyone to take bright, colorful photos, B&W still holds a special and popular place.
Ask any parent who has ever had professional photos of their child(ren) done, and they will no doubt tell you that one of their favorites is a simple B&W. One of my favorite photos of my son is no exception to this rule; it’s so special to me, in fact, that I chose it as the accompanying image to this blog entry.
So, how do you convert photos to B&W? Well, if you have your film processed at a photo studio or processing center, you can request black and white photographs when you drop it off. But if you take digital photos, you’ll need to do some post-processing. Popular programs like Adobe Photoshop and Jasc Paint Shop Pro come with pre-sets that quickly turn any image into a black and white, but they do so by simply de-saturating the image. A beautiful B&W photo requires a bit more finesse than that, including the increasing of contrast, a subtle blue or brown undertone (so the photo isn’t a true B&W, and perhaps some burning of the outer edges of the image.
How can you do all that? Well, you could spend a few days figuring out the complex settings of the program settings. Or, you could look for user-created presets (in Photoshop these are referred to as “actions”) that do all of the work for you. With a click of your mouse you’ll have a gorgeous, high-contrast B&W photo to show off online, or even in a photo frame.
Filed Under: General