Black and white

Pages 164–165: In the dead of winter there’s not much color, even in California’s usually highly saturated gardens. The Tilden Park Botanic Garden in the Berkeley Hills emphasizes California native plants. It’s always a wonderful place to wander, but at the turning of the year I looked for texture and form rather than color with monochromatic imagery on my mind.

The succulent gardens, and particularly the agaves shown in this image, seemed to answer my needs for graphic subject matter. My idea in processing the image was to create an effect that looks almost like an etching rather than a photo.

40mm macro lens, four exposures at shutter speeds ranging from 2.5 seconds to 1/6 of a second, each exposure at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted; exposures combined using Nik HDR Efex Pro and hand-HDR in Photoshop; converted to monochrome using Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As many people know, I like to photograph tiny waterdrops (in fact, I have written an entire book about waterdrop photography!). One thing that always amazes me when I shoot this diminutive subject is the way an entire world is contained within a single drop of water.

The blades of grass shown in this image were coated with waterdrops following a late spring rainstorm. I knew I had to photograph them, particularly because the composition could play with size and scale. At first glance, one could be looking at large leaves, but these blades of grass were no more than 1/16″ across.

200mm macro lens, 36mm extension tube, 1/15 of a sec at f/13 and ISO 100, tripod mounted; converted to monochrome using Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As Paul Simon wrote in his supposed paean to Kodachrome, “Everything looks better in black and white.” Well, not quite everything. If you are considering a monochromatic image, here are some characteristics that you should look for in your subject matter:

The image is not about color—hey, color may not even matter!

The composition is crucial—perhaps the image is mostly about shapes and form.

High-contrast images are best for monochrome.

Simple images that are inherently graphic work well in black and white.

Strong lines work well in black and white, but are often lost if there is a riot of color.

The absence of color should help tell the story that the image is intended to reveal.

The following two ideas apply to any quality digital monochromatic image:

A RAW file captures the world in color, and you need the information that this color provides, so don’t simply drop the color information by desaturating the image.

When you convert an image to monochrome, you can use layers and layer masks to do so very selectively. In other words, there is no reason why a monochromatic conversion has to be—or should be—applied uniformly across an entire image all at once. Different areas in an image can be converted using alternative techniques that are appropriate to the subject matter in those areas.

These ideas about digital monochromatic image making imply a multi-step workflow, in which a color RAW file (or sequence of RAW files) is first processed more or less normally to create a color image. The only difference from a normally processed color image in this progression is that you don’t have to pay as much attention to color as you normally would, and that you want a bit more contrast than you might in a conventional color image.

The second part of creating a black and white image means using layers to apply various monochromatic conversion techniques selectively. For example, with the Park Bench image shown to the right, on several layers I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop’s Black & White Adjustment layers. But other conversion tools work well, so long as they allow you to use the color information as part of the conversion process. Using the color information will give you more detail, and tonal range from light to dark in your black and white image.

The minute I noticed this unusual view down the length of a series of park benches, I decided that the image needed to be rendered in black and white. Regardless, I shot a sequence of color RAW files, and created a high-contrast color version of the image (top, page 168). I converted the color image to monochromatic using six layers (shown on page 168 in the Layers panel) at varying degrees of opacity, using blending modes and layer masks.

200mm, seven exposures at shutter speeds from 1/8 of a second to 10 seconds, each exposure at f/22 and ISO 200, tripod mounted; exposures combined in Photoshop and Nik HDR Efex Pro and converted to monochrome using Photoshop Black & White Adjustment layers and Nik Silver Efex Pro.

This is a variation of the motorcycle image shown in the photo on pages 122–123.

I’ve always liked to photograph beautiful machines, and of course this motorcycle is exquisite. However, one conundrum presented itself to me along the entire process from image conception to post-production: should the presentation be in color or black and white?

There are good visual arguments in both directions. On the one hand, the color image (see pages 122–123) presents sensuous color that is unusual in the context of a normally hard-edged motorcycle.

On the other hand, the monochromatic version lets the beauty of the machinery shine in the starkest sense.

As it turns out, my collectors like prints of both color and monochrome versions. So I guess you’ll just have to decide for yourself.

40mm, nine exposures with shutter speeds ranging from 1/320 of a second to 1.3 seconds, f/13 and ISO 200, tripod mounted; exposures combined in Photoshop; converted to monochrome using Nik Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop.

Pages 172–173: As I left a Zen Buddhist monastery, I looked back and saw what I thought might be an interesting composition of a fork in the road. One road was well used, and the other less traveled.

Since I had an appointment, I almost drove on. But I made myself pull over and park the car, and shot the image. It would have been easy to drive on without stopping, but I find that taking the time to stop and to really look around me is what leads to my best images.

60mm, 1/160 of a second at f/6.3 and ISO 200, handheld; converted to monochrome using Nik Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop.