B/W on camera or PC?

[vandevyver]

It depends on the subject, but most of the time I prefer b/w pictures for portraits. So much stronger!

A few questions/remarks about b/w :

- somehow the pictures seem to look better when using the b/w option of the G1, instead of converting color images to b/w using PaintShopPro.
Or is that just an illusion?

- b/w pictures look great on screen, but rarely are good when printed.
When I print them on my Lexmark they are better than in a lab, but still they are not 100% b/w

any hints/advise?

Luc

[wpope]

Try this. Take two pics of the same scene with your G1,
one in color and one in B&W. Use PS to convert the color
one and compare.

Woody :p

[shaunyc]

Something else to try - take a color shot, import into Paint Shop and use colors->split channel->split to RGB. That gives you the three monochrome pictures with very different combinations of texture and contrast.

Depending on the subject I usually find that I prefer one of the channel images to either the G1 monochrome or the straight greyscale version of the color image.

For portraits the green image seems to work best. For landscape I often go with the dramatic contrast of the red channel. The blue channel rarely wins and it seems to be the one that has the most noise.

Shaun

[shaunyc]

I forgot to answer the second bit...

I'm not sure that I can be much help with regards to printing. Having worked entirely on screen with my images for the last two years I bought a printer only a couple of weeks ago.

I'm completely phazed by image/monitor/printer calibration, color profiles, sRGB, and all the printer driver and application settings (I'll start a thread on this subject in the software section). What I do know is that the prints I'm making blow me away - way better than the ones I take on my film camera and process at the local lab.

The paper selection seems really important. Images are awful on regular paper, but spectacular on glossy photo paper. I've read that the tonal range of a printer (I think there's a more technical word for it) is different from that of your monitor, as there's a set minimum and maximum amount of ink that the printer can deliver. When you are dealing in shades close to white or close to black the printer may have a hard time retaining image fidelity.

I bet there's masses of stuff on Photoshop web sites that would be useful. It should transfer to PSP fairly well since PSP 7 has some color management functionality.

Let us know if you find something useful.

Shaun