Black And White Photography Tips – Four Tips For Great Black And White Pictures

These black and white photography tips will help you to recognize good black and white photo subjects and to be able to photograph and edit these for the best effects.

Black and white photography is an excellent way to train the eye to recognize remarkable photo composition which is why so many photography courses and schools teach black and white early on.

As amazingly beautiful as a colorful sky may be, it is the lines, shapes and curves that move the eye through the photo. So while the colors can be quite beautiful, black and white makes the photo more dynamic.

In spite of its attributes, after the media went full color in the 70′s and 80′s black and white photography faded. It soon became difficult to find places to process black and white film, and stores didn’t always carry it. Now thanks to digital cameras and editing, black and white is back!

How to Recognize Stunning Black and White Photographs

Although choosing the best subjects for black and white is very subjective, many professional photographers will agree that the following types of compositions beg for black and white:

• Photos that convey strong emotion. Color can be a distraction, while black and white lends power to the feeling expressed.
• Images lacking a full spectrum of colors; for example, a city scape or Ansel Adam’s Yosemite “Moon and Half Dome.”
• Low contrast images such as photographs shot on dark overcast days.
• Any subject with the lines, contours, shadows and curves that you just know will look great in black and white. How can you tell? By getting familiar with a variety of black and white images! Search online for Ansel Adams work. Or search for “famous black and photos.”
• Look at B&W photography books at the library. There are lots of places to appreciate and learn this unique art form!

Create Black & White Photography with a Photo Editor

Once you see a subject and know it would like best in black and white, then you can always set your camera to B&W and take it. But once you get experience with using your photo editing software, you’ll find that you can create even better black and white images by shooting in color first and then desaturating it in the editor. Another added benefit to this method is that you’ll never accidentally take a day’s worth of pictures in black and white because you forgot to reset the camera!

Check Your Camera’s White Balance

While the easiest way to change a color to black and white is to desaturate it with your photo editor, this technique doesn’t let you control how the primary colors work together to produce a grayscale brightness. If you create a good white balance when taking the picture, then the simple desaturation method may be all you need do in the photo editor.

Make Sure to Use Your Photo Editing Software’s Color Swatches

By using a photo editor, you can also apply color swatches. Even though we don’t see the colors in black and white, there are tones, and these are created by colors. Color swatches work much the same way as color lenses do on an SLR camera. For instance, camera filters in the yellow to orange range look great with skin tones while green adds wonderful natural tones to outdoors pictures.

And finally, don’t forget to show off your black and white photographs. Black and white photos look great framed and deserve to be on the wall for all to see. You should select picture frames that showcase your image with simple clean lines rather than distract from it. Black and white pictures look especially good framed in silver picture frames, gold picture frames and even black picture frames depending upon the style of the image. Hope you enjoyed these four black and white photography tips and have fun taking your next black and white photo!