The Elegance of Black and White

Many photographers convert a color image to black and white only when they have exhausted all the possibilities for working with it in color. Needless to say, this is not what I recommend. Black and white photography is all about tonal contrast. The fact that a scene contains reds, greens, or blues is not as important as the tones of those reds, greens, or blues (Figure 8.22).

Figure 8.22. This image of Yosemite Falls was taken with the intention of converting it to black and white. The contrasting tones of the rock, trees, and sky make it work.

When I capture an image, I know before I press the shutter release button whether I am going to convert it to black and white. The more photographs you take, the better you will get at figuring out what scenes are conducive to black and white. For black and white conversion software, look into onOne Software’s Perfect B&W and Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2.