Black and White Image Help?

Question

No, this is not the ever-present "I need to add color" question.

When converting a color image to B&W, my images, even if they have great contrast, lack it in the conversion. What's wrong? An example is portraits. I take a great contrast portrait, then convert it to B&W. The subject looks "muddy."

If at all possible, please tell me what I'm doing wrong. And, if you could suggest a way without using Photoshop CS3/CS2. All I have to work with is PictureProject Software. I know this is not much, but if I had $600 to spend on photography, I would go for a nice lens, not a program.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're not doing anything wrong. But, for better or worse, you will have to depend on either your camera or software to get a good print.

I have a slightly different take on the B&W conversion problem. Similar to the other answerers, but not the same.

I don't know your software, so I don't know how it enables you to do B&W conversion. In the worst case, all you can do is desaturate the color and then play with the contrast. This will get you absolutely nowhere toward a quality B&W print. Here is the visible spectrum in color and the gray scale after desaturation. The same conversion is after increasing saturation and contrast, which has been suggested.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Vance.Lear/BWConversion/photo?authkey=8TfUqoFNSic#5137017600496705442

You can see the problem. The brain provides the perceptual brightness of the colors. You can check this with a light meter. This causes a lot of dissatisfaction with B&W digital and is the reason that you hear that digital can't do good B&W. That is, of course, not true.

If your camera, like mine, produces B&W conversions that simulate how the brain interprets colors and brightness you're in luck. If not, you will have to do it in post processing.

There are several types of conversions you and they all require access to color channels. The one I think you would be looking for is called 'Perceptual Luminance Conversion'. This is an image of how the various B&W conversions, which act like film does, render the spectrum.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Vance.Lear/BWConversion/photo?authkey=8TfUqoFNSic#5137017634856443826

Not knowing your software and what it's capabilities are, I can't offer you any advice, but these are the settings you would use in CS3 to get something very close to a perceptual conversion.

Reds - 23%
Yellows -84%
Greens - 60%
Cyans - 50%
Blues - 10%
Magentas - 51%

http://picasaweb.google.com/Vance.Lear/BWConversion/photo?authkey=8TfUqoFNSic#5137017673511149506

I'm not sure where you will find them, but there are free utilities out there that will take a JPEG and do these types of B&W conversion for you without PS and there are a whole slew actions for photoshop that will do the same. Other alteratives may be Picassa, which does an alright job, or similar programs that you can push a button and get perceptual conversion. I don't know about that.

Vance

Answer 2

I have Picture Project and although I still shoot with b&w film, sometimes I do still play with converting color to b&w. When doing so, you are going to have to:
a.) Consider the photo that you want to convert first. Some photos that look great in color just don't have enough contrasts to make an excellent transition to b&w.
b.) Use your enhancements accordingly....mostly use your "brightness" and also check the box "enhance dark tones". Stay away from "auto-enhance" if at all possible. Your D-Lighting HS also may help if the image is too dark. Usually "low" to "normal" is all you will need.

Picture Project is not a bad photo-editing program at all. When transferring from camera or photo, you always lose some of the quality during the transfer and Picture Project has always taken me back to the quality of the initial image.
I too would rather invest in a lens than a program for Photography.

Answer 3

Part of it might be your subject. While something can have great contrast in COLOR, the TONAL values might be close enough that in black and white, it all looks about even.

A good example is red. As you're probably aware, in black and white, bright red can come out very dark grey.

So, if you have a bright red apple, really well lit, on a dark blue background, in color it would be vibrant. But in B&W, not so much.

I'm afraid I'm not sure how you can fix it in the program you're trying to use. Photoshop, sure. I suggest you look for ways to adjust "contrast", "curves", or "balance". Play around with them and see if anything helps.

Answer 4

Black

Answer 5

I am not familiar with Picture Project, but does it allow you to address the saturation of colors individually? If it does, try to leave about 5-10% of one color in the image. Try different colors and see which one you like, but if you leave a bit of red, you might find that this gives that contrasty image you are looking for.

I do NOT mean to leave any actual visible red, but only the bare minimum need to keep your image from being a simple desaturation to grayscale.

See this sample: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/1665364467/

Mason has an excellent tutorial that would be appropriate for your question, but it uses Photoshop. I will not post a link, but I placed star so that he might see this question and decide if posting his link would help you.

Answer 6

See if your camera has the option to shoot in BW that will help get the contrast better.

EDIT:
dont know why i got the thumbs down, a lot of cameras have a B/W mode that gives a richer contrast.

Answer 7

Please e-mail me and I will go over it in details.