Colour VS. monochrome

Hi,

I just wanted to ask what might be a stupid question, but is it better to always shoot in colour and then to desaturate the photo afterwards, or should you sometimes just use monochrome?

Thanks,

IMO, it's better to shoot in RAW and then convert afterwards because you'll be able to balance the different channels to your liking.....not to mention, you'll also have the option to use the photo in color if you so desire

Thanks jra,

I have yet to actually shoot in RAW, as sad as that sounds - lol

At this stage I am mostly experimenting with my camera and its features and not editing anything yet.

But I do think it is time to start shooting in RAW and then doing some form of post-production work.

You definitely have more control shooting in color first, then converting to BW!

The only reason I can think of would be to get instant feedback of how the scene looks mono. If you shoot color, you have to guess how it is going to look converted. That said, I always shoot RAW, so even if I set it to mono in camera, I can still revert the RAW to color.

As mentioned above shoot in color and then do your conversion in post processing so you have more precise control over the tones in conversion.

I don't know what software you are using, but you would get a lot of advantages by shooting Raw and then loading your photos into the Canon Raw processing software Digital Photo Professional (DPP). This software automatically applies the in-camera setting (B&W/Monochrome) and then gives you total freedom to move things around in software!

I'll reinforce the idea of shooting in RAW mode and doing any monochrome conversion in post-processing as opposed to letting the camera produce monochrome images. Your control of the final product would be MANY times greater doing it this way.

I'm sure you've got the gist of peoples' opinions in here, so I'll just add that selecting which colours to "desaturate" and by how much is BEST done by you! Not your camera.

Good luck, and come back anytime to anyone regarding post processing.

Regards,
Simon

If we are talking about digital, then yes... always color and change it to BW later on. If we talk film, then BW film for BW images for sure. You can never get same look from color film (later converted to BW in PS) then you get from BW film.