B/W Before or After...?

[76Retro]

If your end goal is to have a B/W photo, is it better to shoot in B/W, OR is it better to shoot in color, and use and editing program to convert it to B/W...?

This is also assuming your shooting in the RAW, and the one clear advantage to doing B/W afterwards is that your still have a color photo should you desire one. But that one thing aside...

Is there a clear advantage of one over the other...?

Is shooting in B/W better quality then an edited B/W...?

Does shooting vs. editing change the photo in different ways, or is it really the same either way...?

[Xymnslot]

This is a COMPLETELY subjective opinion of mine so take it with a grain of salt, but I tend to like the results I get from shooting in black and white better than converting them later. I don't know what it is, but the shades of gray seem more dynamic.

[76Retro]

Xymnslot,

Thanks for your contribution to my thread. I thought I was going to have gotten more response out of it, but I appreciate your subjective take on it...

[ZoneV]

I shoot nearly all in RAW, afterwards I use Lightroom. Sometimes even for B/W conversion. But if I have a bit more time, I use Nik Silver Efex Pro - and I like that.
I never tried to shoot directly with the B/W conversion in the camera, because I love and need the manipulation to get the images I want. Because of that, I would even use color images and B/W conversion if I had to use the JPEG only way - more possibilities and because of that more quality for me.

[mtimber]

I watched a programme on black and whites on Kelby recently.

It went through a lot of different processes.

I eventually came out with one technique and it does a much better job of converting the RAWS into black and whites than the Lightroom presets do.

Its worth learning some more indepth techniques.

You would have to watch the video if you haven't already.

[#NAME#]

Not that I'm any good at it, but recently I've been shooting RAW + JPG for B&W, and putting a little more effort getting it right in camera. I'm using a 5Dc and the LCD isn't the best reference, but referring to an approved JPG has made RAW post-processing a little more focused. I'll often discard the JPG after I've played around with the RAW. Another alternative I haven't tried is telling Lightroom to simply stop re-processing RAW files and replacing the embedded thumbnail.

I've just started doing it this way, but it's yet another option that is mostly working okay for me.

[CactusJuice]

IMO shoot in color then convert in your favorite software. I've been using Corel Paint Shop Pro X4 (currently on sale for $25!). X4 has it's own B&W conversion -- plus -- it also comes with Nik Color Effects Pro 3 which has a B&W conversion as well. I'll usually run my image through both and compare; I usually prefer one over the other.

[Repo Man]

My personal approach is a mix of both in a way. When i got into Black & White for the first time, i shot with the camera set to B&W, nowadays i find that i can sort of spot if a scene is suitable for B&W so i just leave the camera to colour. When i process the images i also treat all images differently, i dont use any pre-sets at all because in my experience some settings work great for 1 image but totally ruin things for another. Just the way i roll.

[Spacemunkie]

This is an easy one: Shoot Raw and convert later. Why chuck away all that invaluable colour information that can be manipulated in the conversion process?

[ziemowit]

always shoot raw colour, and convert later. why ? because you can control all the colours separately. I never use lightroom presets, just do it manually.

a great piece of software is NIK software Silver fX, mentioned here. what they did best is the grain algorithm in my opinion. also you get some bw film as presets to start from. kodak ilford agfa, its all there. i did a comparison once with ilford films, and was amazed how close it gets.