Canon 20D On Board B&W or Raw and convert later?

[Thuringer]

Ok I am new to the digital world, I had worked in a fine art studio that only delt with film, so I have crazy hours in a dark room for kid who is 21.( worked there for six years, you know after school and summers) So got to collage still shot film, but could not longer pocess the film for free. Got a Canon 20D, and Adobe CS2, and to be honest I hate the on board Jpeg black and white and when I shoot in Raw I don't like converting just by clicking on the grayscale or desaurate. I had posted this early and a mod said you guys could help over here. One thing that came up was gamma channles? Not sure where that is or what. But as of right now I find my images flat and not the correct tones, ( my boss made me shoot zone system no matter what, and print for that matter too.) So when I get these images on screen I am a little disaponted.

Lost In Idaho

[milleker]

Figure it this way - if you do it in camera, you get a black and white image. You can adjust contrasts, brightness and thats about it.

Do it in color and not only do you have the option of having the image in color, but you can apply digitally some of the old lovable black and white filter effects. Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Orange. Just by giving Photoshop color to work with, you've opened yourself to a whole arsenal of different looks and effects. I will never, ever, ever shoot B&W in camera - you lose so much creative control!

And welcome to the forums!

[Anke]

Milleker beat me to it, I would agree totally!

[JoeJ]

you need to go here: http://com1.runboard.com/bthedigitalmonochromeforum

It's a site dedicated to digital B&W, you'll learn tons of stuff.

[SWPhotoImaging]

Shoot RAW, convert later.
Download a copy of Lightroom to try out. I think you'll find the B&W conversion tools there much nicer than what is available in CS2.
I have been a staunch CS2 & channel mixer B&W user for a long time, and am liking the toolset in Lightroom much better.

[LeggNet]

Here's how I do my conversions in CS2 (it's a pretty common way to do it):

Create a new "Channel Mixer" layer. Check the "monochrome" box and then adjust your red, green and blue sliders to acheive the results you desire. It is recommended to keep the three values at a total of 100% (combined).

You can even create an effect similar to IR if you bump the red channel to +200% and then adjust the green/blue channels to a negative value equal to -100%.

As a side note, CS3 now has a dedicated black & white conversion tool that gives you much greater control.

Hope this was helpful... Rich

[milleker]

Rich, this is how I do it too. I love LightRoom but still prefer to do my edits in Photoshop. I have a set of actions that use the Channel Mixer to emulate certain B&W films as well as filters (including the IR you mentioned). I remember zipping these up for another forum, so if anyone is interested, feel free to snag these and test them out.

http://www.johnmilleker.com/content/nyip/actions_01.zip

Here's how I do my conversions in CS2 (it's a pretty common way to do it):

Create a new "Channel Mixer" layer. Check the "monochrome" box and then adjust your red, green and blue sliders to acheive the results you desire. It is recommended to keep the three values at a total of 100% (combined).

You can even create an effect similar to IR if you bump the red channel to +200% and then adjust the green/blue channels to a negative value equal to -100%.

As a side note, CS3 now has a dedicated black & white conversion tool that gives you much greater control.

Hope this was helpful... Rich

[LeggNet]

That's cool. Thanks for sharing.

-Rich

Rich, this is how I do it too. I love LightRoom but still prefer to do my edits in Photoshop. I have a set of actions that use the Channel Mixer to emulate certain B&W films as well as filters (including the IR you mentioned). I remember zipping these up for another forum, so if anyone is interested, feel free to snag these and test them out.

http://www.johnmilleker.com/content/nyip/actions_01.zip

[Thuringer]

Hey Thanks ya'll its Helping. Ooo and the IR is cool too, I love to shoot in IR, but you need an old school camera so you don't get any fogging on the film; but now...ahah Digital IR.