The Art of Black and White Digital Photography

In an age of digital photography, a lot of us appreciate the visual impact and elegance of black and white photography when juxtaposed The Art of Black and White Digital Photography with color photography. Black and White photography is not simply a result of old technology of a bygone era. Black and white is a technique that we can still employ today to enhance our photography. With black and white photography, we are allowed to see the world beyond colors. With black and white photography, we can control moods. With black and white photography, we can highlight details we normally would not see in color. Ultimately, The Art of Black and White Digital Photography with black and white photography, it is a technique that can enhance our ability to tell our story through imagery. However, unlike color photography, many of us have trouble creating artistic or compelling black and white photos.

Top quality black and white digital photography

It should be easy to get good black and white digital photography from a modern digital camera. 

After all, most come with a black and white mode to enable instant black and white photography. 

But my advice – steer clear of any of those special camera modes!

I'll show you why . . . roll your mouse over the photographs below (one was converted by the greyscale method, the other by using the "channel mixer"). 

If you would like your black and white digital photography to look more like the second photo, rather than the lifeless greyscale of the first photo, then read on.

Show us YOUR black and white pictures! 
Submit your black and white photos, and share them with the world! 

Black and White, the digital way

Starting digital black and white

This article is an extended version of one Keith wrote for Canon Europe (issue 11).

It is aimed at showing some of the basic principles involved in digital black and white photography.

The quality of conversions is discussed later, since if you are going to be producing the best black and white prints, the conversion technique can make quite a difference.

How to 'do' digital B&W...

There is much more information on conversion and printing in the Digital Black and White section of this site. This article dates from several years ago, but is still valid.

High quality Black and White

Black and white goes back to the very origins of photography.

Early plates and films had limited sensitivity to longer (red) wavelengths of light and produce a certain interpretation of the subject.

Later films had a much more even response to colours (panchromatic) that led to a different ‘look’.

It was soon discovered that using coloured filters in front of the lens also altered the image.The differing chemistry and manufacturing processes adopted by various manufacturers resulted in different films producing subtly different renditions of the same scene.

For example, a red filter cuts out some of the blue light from the sky while still letting through the red component of the white light reflected from clouds.

This results in darker skies, which emphasise the clouds.

More complex mixtures of colours, such as flowering plants and skin tones, would all look slightly different on different films and with different filters.

Right ->
Hood Canal, Washington

From a Canon EOS 1Ds raw (colour) image

LEICA M MONOCHROM: THE FUTURE OF BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY

Solms Germany (May 10, 2012) - Leica Camera AG presents the Leica M Monochrom, the world’s first digital camera exclusively for full-frame, 35 mm black-and-white photography. Featuring a sensor designed specifically for this purpose, the new addition to the Leica portfolio enables photographers to capture images in outstanding black-and-white quality, setting entirely new standards. The latest camera in the flagship Leica M-System, the Leica M Monochrom continues the successful story of the Leica rangefinder system, which has written numerous chapters in the history of innovative photography.

“Black-and-white photography is more popular than ever before. Even today, it has lost none of its fascination as an expressive medium, not even for younger generations of photographers. This is confirmed by the numerous monochrome images shown by members of the M-Community, who we are in constant contact with,” said Jesko von Oeynhausen, Product Manager for the M-System at Leica Camera AG. “For the first time ever, we are offering an opportunity to consistently and authentically explore black-and-white photography with the M Monochrom, a tool that is unique in the digital world. The camera’s exclusively black-and-white sensor brings an enormous technical benefit that is reflected in the amazing imaging quality it delivers.”

Black and white digital photography

An interview with Keith Cooper

Keith was recently interviewed for a magazine feature [2007], all about black and white digital photography, particularly some of the examples in the Gallery.

We've taken many of the notes from the interview and put them onto this article.

Keith has added some additional pictures and information to expand on some of his replies.

Digital Black and White

Thanks to Josie Reavely of Digital Photographer magazine for asking the questions in the first place to make me think hard about different aspects of my work!

The article aimed at people who may be familiar with colour digital photography, but have not really tried black and white before. Hopefully some of it will also be of interest to those coming to digital black and white, but with an existing knowledge of B/W film techniques.

This first article covers black and white digital photography in general, the second articlecovers aspects of digital black and white printing.

Note, the opinions in the interview represent the personal views of Keith Cooper and not Northlight Images

About Keith Cooper (more detailed bio)

Keith is a commercial photographer (i.e. no weddings or baby photos!)

He specialises in work for corporate advertising and promotion, ranging from detailed product photography through to interiors, architecture, corporate events and his fine art black and white landscape work.

He produces all his own large fine art works, recently supplying black and white landscape prints over nine feet long for an interior design project.

Keith also lectures on aspects of digital and commercial photography, and teaches commercial aspects of photography to companies, including such areas as product photography and teaching estate agents to take better house photos.

It's often said that removing colour from a photo can add something to it – revealing detail that you wouldn't otherwise have noticed.

Would you agree with this? / Do you have any examples where this is the case?

Black and white prints digital

All our digital prints are produced on genuine ILFORD Black and White silver gelatin RC photographic paper. We believe this is as close as you can get to a traditional B&W darkroom print from a digital file and has significant benefits when compared to B&W images produced from colour processes;

ALL INFORMATION YOU MAY FOUND IN THE LEFT MENU!

• Prints have a consistent and neutral image tone (no colour cast).
• Strong blacks and detailed highlights.
• Bright white base for stunning black and white photographs.
• Superb quality and robustness.
• Excellent batch-to-batch and print-to-print consistency.
• No printing colour profiles required.

• Black and white prints digital