How to take B/W pic on 300D?

[cyber888]

How to take black and white picture on the D300 (digital rebel).


I tried all menu settings, just can not figure out. I ooked at D10 manual, it did not mention it either.


HELP!!!!!!

[cyber888]

In general, how to take black and white pictures in Canon digital EOS series?

[Sketcher]

Well, for starters - you need to use a B/W memory card.

But, most of us use Photoshop or:

---->insert program of choice here

[Belmondo]

There are a few different ways to convert images to B&W, but no direct way to shoot it and store it in the camera.

Probably the easiest is to do it is in Photoshop: under the Image menu, select 'Mode,' then 'Grayscale.' You'll be prompted as to whether or not you want to discard your color information. Click 'yes', and VOILA! Instant B&W.

Another way is to go under the Image menu and select 'Adjust,' then 'Hue/Saturation,' and then move the Saturation slider all the way to the left. This is good because it preserves the color information if you decide you want to go backwards.

My favorite, although it involves a couple extra steps, is to convert the image to Lab Color. You do this under the Image menu. Select Mode, and then Lab Color. Then go to the Channel Pallet and discard the a and b channels. This will give you a very different B&W image, which, depending on our taste, you might find preferable. I know I do. Then, go back under Image>Mode>Grayscale. You can now start playing with brightness, contrast, and anything else you want to tweak.

Your fun's just starting!!!

[barnold999]

Sketcher wrote:
Well, for starters - you need to use a B/W memory card.


haha that cracked me up...

[cyber888]

It just surprised a friend of mine, he is a semi-pro, and had a coolpix. - B&W is a standard feature in coolpix.

So in the situations that I want to have black and white for the contract, such as portrait and natural scenes, I will have to do the post-processing. I guess people just take less and less black and white pictures.

I thought B&W is a standard feature in medium/high-end digital cameras :-(

Thanks for the step by step instructions!

[Belmondo]

I think you'll find that most serious digital photographers would rather start with a color image even though the end product might be B&W. One of the problems you'll have to deal with in B&W is that certain colors, no matter how different, will produce very similar shades of gray. By manipulating the color channels before converting a color image to B&W, you can produce a much better image.

I did an experiment a while back using a picture I'd taken of a railroad locomotive. When I converted it to grayscale by simply desaturating the color, I ended up with a picture that didn't make sense. The yellow and gray in the locomotive ended up looking dark and nearly identical. I then converted the image to Lab Color as I described earlier, and got a much better result. Without the color image to start with, I couldn't have gotten as good a final picture.

As to having a B&W setting on your camera, I wouldn't worry about it. A single setting would not be versatile enought to be utilized in every situation. Leave gimmicks like that to the Nikon users. They need all the help they can get. (Actually, I had a CoolPix 995 and really enjoyed it, but gave it up in favor of a G2, and then a 10D.)

Anyway, I hope this makes sense.

Tom


http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/data/500/353B_W_Experiment-med.jpg

[AliasMoze]

Either converting to Lab Color or Grayscale is a compromise, because you're going from 24 bits to 8 bits, giving up millions of colors and settling for 256 shades of gray.

The Pixie Dust Plugin converts to B&W using 24 bits, generating a fuller range of grays. The difference is very noticeable, especially in the shadow details. Here is the URL:

http://www.ldsearch.com/photoshop/download.html

There is a free, working version, with an option to register for a Pro version.

[Vegas Poboy]

If you have Elements 2 just go and remove color.

[larshkj]

Take a look here:

http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/b-w_better.shtml

[defordphoto]

Vegas Poboy wrote:
If you have Elements 2 just go and remove color.

No no no! Not the way to do it.

[AliasMoze]

That's a good tip, larshkj, but it still deals with only 8 bits of color, the contents of one 256-color channel. Try the plugin I put up above for 24-bit conversion.