Taken in Colour VS Taken in B & W

Hey guys.

I have always wondered whether or not it make much difference to the end result of the pic if you take it in colour and convert it using say CS2 or straight out taking the pic. in Monotone?

thanks

matt

Taking the picture in B&W gives you no options, taking in colour and then manipulating during PP gives you an almost infinite number of options so that is what I do.

I'm not an expert (by far!) but I gather it's slightly better if you shoot in colour; you record all colour information and thus get a larger dynamic range when converting.

Can someone confirm this? I'd hate to lead Matt astray!

Edit: Neil got there before me - I don't feel like an idiot now

ah cheers guys.

also one last thing!

i noticed when looking back through some old pics taken in sepia it has the colour histogram too. just like a standard colour pic.
I was under the impression that like the B & W it only records the colours relevant and with that filter colour would not be an necessary option?!

Sepia is a colour like any other colour - it's made of other colours. There'll definitely be a colour histogram

Always do the conversion in PS - there are many more options available, including some really good 'plugins' and 'actions' for B&W conversion.
Also, you may happen to like the colour version...

cheers

I ALWAYS shoot RAW.. If I think it'll look good in B&W I'll convert it later. I like havin the orginal file in color so all options are available. Plus, I'm not too fond of the in camera Monochrome's look.

ah if only i had the facility to shoot in RAW, give it about 2 months and hopefully ill have a D40/K100D/400D

Although I like doing my own custom conversion via CS2/PS for final work; for quickies or just goofing around, I like to take my RAW in DPP, swap to monochrome and slide the filter to the best responding color. (usually red)

bobinatcat wrote in post #2457824
ah if only i had the facility to shoot in RAW, give it about 2 months and hopefully ill have a D40/K100D/400D

Sorry 'bout that.. Then I'd stick with color JPG. Same reasons. It's always nice to have a color copy.. Coverted B&W tend to have better depth if you're not in a controlled lighting environment..

I agree with those comments mentioned above.

If you shoot B&W, all you have is B&W.

If you shoot color even though you are 'seeing' the image as a B&W, you will have a Color and a B&W if you desire. Why throw away the option of having a color image if you later feel it might work with selective coloring, pastel color, desaturated color, or just B&W. More options are always a plus in my opinion.