Don’t Shoot Black & White In-Camera

Some cameras have a built-in black-and-white setting, and I’m going to encourage you not to use it because it’s going to limit your options later in post-processing. The best way to create a great black-and-white landscape image is to start with a great color landscape image. Having all that color data gives you a lot of things you can do in post-production, by boosting or subtracting various colors (imagine boosting or darkening a grassy field by moving the Greens slider or changing the darkness of the sky by dragging the Blues or Cyans slider). All that goes out the window if you shoot in black and white—you’ll just greatly limit your post-processing options without gaining anything other than the ability see a black-and-white on the back of your camera. Keep your options open, and always shoot in color, even and especially when you know you’re going to make it a black-and-white image later.