Black and White

[Eppel]

Entering the digital photography age for the first time with a Canon Power Spot A80, which I enjoy, I wonder how I should set it to take black and white pictures. Any guidance and tips would be appreciated.

David

[JohnnyE]

I'd recommend using either P, AV or TV shooting mode. To set it to take b/w images, press the FUNC button, arrow down to the Effects selection and set it to BW. You can't set it to this while in AUTO.

[ekrunaj]

If you have Photoshop available to you, you can get better black and white results by shooting in colour and waiting until you download your images to convert to black and white. To do this, once you've downloaded your image, go to "File" in your tool bar and choose "Save As". When the "Jpeg" prompt comes up, click and drag on "Jpeg", scroll down and choose "Tiff". Duplicate the image ("Image">"Duplicate"). Save the original "Tiff"; always save the orignal "Tiff" image!!! Now take your duplicated image and choose "Image">"Adjust">"Channel mixer". Check the "Monochrome" button in the lower left corner of the "Channel Mixer" window, and the image will convert to Black and White (Grayscale). You can now adjust the colour levels to give you the optimum Black and White image. Now compare this to a similar or identical image you took with the Black and White option on the camera. You be the judge.