It seems that lately I have been seeing more and more work that had been originaly shot in color and then converted to black and white.

I'd just like to toss this little fact out there, for all of you digital shooters, to have in your bag of tricks.

Most digital cameras now have two modes...color and greyscale. Why would they give you a greyscale option when you can just convert it later?

Having the option to shoot color and make it greyscale later is nice, but there is a definate advantage to that seldom used greyscale option on your cameras.

Sharper images and more detail!

Here's why....when you shoot in color the CCD in your camera is seperated into RGB pixels like a checker board, and so it has to interpolate up to 24 bit color to simulate continuous color tones.

When shooting in greyscale your camera can ignore those color filters and simply capture each pixel as a true pixel. Just like good old black and white film.

So depending on your camera and intended use, you might not see any difference, so give yourself the option and shoot color and convert. But If you intend to make high quality prints in black and white from the get go, you will see a difference.

I'm using a Nikon coolpix 5700, and I have noticed a HUGE difference.

Just thought I'd share some info.

Very interesting... I'll try with Dimage7.. Thnx! :)

I find it interesting too... I have shot in B&W with my Dimage7 but often I'm not sure what my output will be until I have them on my computer and I can really study them. Aside from the fact that you have noticed a difference in your own images do you have any reference articles to back up your idea? Just curious as I like to read more about it if you do. Since all I've ever read says that shooting color and converting is the better deal.

My thinking is two fold on converting to B&W. First I have the option of either B&W or color, and second I can get better tonal ranges by converting. Here is how I learned to do it: For this example I will be using Photoshop 7 but almost any photo-editing program that supports adjustment layers will work) Open a copy of your image in Photoshop. (Never use your original just in case of a crash or something) Once you have your image open make sure you are in RGB mode. 1. Click on Layer on the Menu bar, Go to New Adjustment Layer and choose Channel Mixer. Click OK and the Channel Mixer dialog box opens. Make no adjustments just click OK 2. Go back to the Layer menu again, go to New Adjustment Layer again and select Hue/Saturation this time and click OK. 3. The Hue/Saturation dialog box will open. Lower Hue to -100 by sliding the center tab all the way to the left. Click OK to close accept the change. 4. Now in the Layers Palette (lower right hand corner of your screen in the default view) double click the Channel Mixer layer to open the Channel Mixer dialog box. 5. Once the dialog box is open change the Output Channel to Red and adjust the colors to adjust the tones in the image. Make sure you have the Preview checked so you can see the changes in the image. 6. Repeat this step for Green and Blue options. 7. Once you have adjusted these colors to your liking click OK to save the changes. 8. Save the file as a PSD and that?s it! Great tonal ranges in B&W! If Ansel Adams only had it so easy? Magick Michael zhounder.com

If anyone can point me in the right direction for reading up on this topic I would truly appreciate it. I never realised there was a difference of quality by shooting in one version or the other. I just shoot in b/w when I want that effect. I am going to have to do some experimenting now. @zhounder, thanx for the technique. I use Photoimpact 8 and have tried something similar. I also have Photoshop 7; now I will try your technique and see if I can notice a difference between the two techniques :)

A book I recently got: "The Photoshop Book For Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby describes several detailed (and relatively easy) methods for conversion to b&W, one very similar to what zhounder described above. The author claims his methods produce far better results than a simple conversion using the "desaturate" command, for example. The methods are too long to rewrite, but I encourage folks to check out the book. It's probably available in many libraries.

Attached Link: http://www.digidaan.nl/index2.html

Oh no! Never use desaturate! I've always used the channel mixer and you do get really good results. The hue/sat with channel mixer combo is a new thing and there's also a step by step written out in the May 2003 issue of PCPhoto magazine..... which I know zhounder has also mentioned recently. I'm actually playing with this method on an image I took yesterday....and my verdict is "I'm still not sure if I think it's better than just straight channel mixer methods"...... but I haven't had time to compare the two either... The other thing is this link posted more than once now that I found a while back. This link brings you to Channel-Mixer presets for Photoshop that are being given away for free to use. I've found them to be quite useful, although you may need to fiddle with the settings a bit to get exactly what you want.

Ok that link brings you to the Main Page....if you hold your mouse of the thumbs you will see one for ChannelMixtures, with an Adobe Eye image on it....that will bring you to the correct page.

Over...over the thumbs.... sorry about the damn typos....

Personaly I simply click on the "Greyscale" button in PSP. Aditionally I may increase the contrast of brightness for a more stark look. I believe one reason why people decide to use the desaturate trick is because it's easier to decide later. One thing people can to do is to photograph the picture in BOTH formats. ( Come on it's just one more picture ) Most cards allow people to take plenty of "shots". I've taken both pictures and desaturated however I think depending on the size of the image the advantage of true B/W over er simulated B/W could perhaps be marginal. Bsteph

FYI all, the process I explained earlier is my version of the PCPhoto article that Michelle mentions. All I really did was break out the steps a little to make it a tad easier to do. MM

Selecting Grayscale, or desaturating, will generally not give best results. I tend to use 'Chelle's channel mixer presets. Now, for the original post... hmm... interesting... Makes sense. In B&W mode, does the pixel count increase by 3? [Raw file size the same, but more pixels?]

Just a sort of technical note, using the "crude" image adjustment tools (desaturate, grayscale, brightness/contrast, etc.) instead of the more "refined" ones (levels, curves, mixing channels, etc.) actually throws a lot more actual image data away. Almost every manipulation causes a loss of data, just the cruder they are the more stuff gets tossed for each action. On another note...I was just reading an article this month on John Swannell (master portrait and fashion photographer). I was completely blown away by the fact that he now shoots digital (has a ~$35000 digital setup). This guy is known for his b&w photography. He now shoots digital in color and then converts to monochrome in his computer. -=>Donald

One would assume John Swannel would have a very trained eye regarding the quality of photos and to me it says a lot for a master photographer to be converting. That being said, anyone have $35000 I can borrow.......pleeeease ;D

Not surprised.....I read a lot of photography mags and many many many professionals are switching to digital or they use a little of both. Of course their equipment is very expensive in comparison to what most of us use....but I find it amusing!