Any way to do Ansel Adams style scenery "photos"?

Well, I can think of 2 ways...

After creating the scene as normal (in full colour):

1. (The easy way).  Render and save resulting pic. Import pic into (almost any) photo enhancement (2D painting) app. Convert to grey-scale...

2. (The not so easy way). Change all the textures on everything in the Vue scene to a grey-scale equivalent. That includes the atmosphere, the sunlight, all and any textures applied to any terrains/rocks/trees/water etc.. Then render...

There may be another way. But I don't know it...

Cheers,
Diolma

Well the problem with with #1 is that greyscale by itself is only 32? shades, anyway doesn't really look like a high quality B&W photo

My method is to use Photoshop and use the saturation control- reduce down the color until it is nearly B&W-- but it's STILL a color RGB image. This looks much better!

Also- you can add a very slight color tone- like blue, sepia, etc (I mean VERY SLIGHT) and it will look like a professional lab photo when you print it on an Epson color printer...

The number of shades of grey depends on the image format, how many Vue exports for the image format and how many your paint package supports.  Nice and simple...

The one that supports the least will be the controlling factor in how many you get to play with.  For example:

• 4 bits of greyscale gives 16 shades of grey
• 8 bits gives 256 shades of grey
• 12 bits gives 4096
• 16 bits gives 65,536

Personally I like to use Veritas' suggestion as it gives a bit of mood to the image.

"My method is to use Photoshop and use the saturation control- reduce down the color until it is nearly B&W-- but it's STILL a color RGB image. This looks much better!"

Agreed, it may look better... but it's still not a B/W image. It wouldn't look right printed on a B/W-only printer (if such a thing still exists)....

The vast majority (currently) of apps, formats, VDUs and (home-owner) printers support the 32-bit paradigm:
8 bits for each of the R/G/B values (=24 bits) with 8 bits left over (usually either unused or used for alpha-mask info). That means that each of the R/G/B channels can vary from 0-255.

Since (true) grey-scale means that R = G = B for each pixel/dot, then there are (as said in Impish's post) 256 levels of grey available. Not the best by any means, but the best that most of us poor home-owners are likely to get for some time to come.

What WOULD be nice is a totally new format which used (eg) 16 bits/pixel specifically for grey-scale images. But that would require changes to the majority of software/hardware for what is rather a niche market these days...I'll not hold my breath, nor save up my pennies (pennies wouldn't be enough..)

Cheers,
Diolma

Well, I actually tried it out!  Decreasing the saturation just decreases the number of colors.  As you begin to approach B & W you get a grayscale image, adding   a hue just colorizes the same number of pixels.  In other words you just get 256 shades of blue.  Even with a tad left of colors, noticeable a color image,  you bump up against the 256 limit.  For some reason  the image I used got 236 colors even while slightly colored in what appeared to be more than just one shade, rather than just a hue if you know what I mean.  Learned something though

Thanks
Steve Cat

Well, what's funny here to me is that I own two large 42" wide Epson printers and I have been making up to $15,000 a month printing art and photography! (I started with a $125,000 IRIS 3047 in my home...)

...Too bad I don't know how to print toned B&W photography...heh!!!

(Excuse me while I change the Arches sheet...Arches watercolor paper is... well, nevermind.)

"Well, what's funny here to me is that I own two large 42" wide Epson printers and I have been making up to $15,000 a month printing art and photography! (I started with a $125,000 IRIS 3047 in my home...)

...Too bad I don't know how to print toned B&W photography...heh!!!"

Veritas777: I never suggested nor (as far as I can see) anyone else suggested you didn't know how to print toned B&W photography... but...

The question was: (slightly rephrased) How to do B&W pics...(no tones)..

The originator didn't specify what type of PC he/she was working on, nor what type of equipment he/she was working with... Also, there was nothing said about "for print".  But regardless...

Questions:
Would your method work with a £75.00 Lexmark  (about the most I can afford) printer?
How do I increase the # of bits-per-pixel, (so that I can get finer gradation in grey-scale) when using Win2K?
Would the RGB images still look as good if printed when using the "B&W" option? (On the Lexmark, this is an option, it only uses the "Black Ink" cartridge, which, I admit, makes a bit of of fool of me when I referred to B&W only printers possibly not existing - I'd forgotten about that possibility at the time of posting.)

I don't have your sort of experience, nor your money. I wasn't suggesting (at least I hope I wasn't) that you don't know your stuff. I was commenting on PURE B&W images, given the limitations that I know the majority of us ((non-professionals) have.

Apologies if I caused offence, but I still stick with my comments...

Cheers,
Diolma

Actually, iirc, TGA format supports 16 bit greyscale?

I know oen format does was readign abot such stuff on the WOrld Builder forums ;)

"Actually, iirc, TGA format supports 16 bit greyscale?"

Hmm - now you come to mention it, I seem to remember that TGA (or another similarly-named) format supports 16-bit greyscale.

No use to me, alas. I don't have (AFAIK) any software that's capable of generating and/or manipulating 16-bit greyscale:-((

But Cheers, anyway,
Diolma

photoshop c2 should be able too in RAW format I think?

Well, if you're using V5i (don't know whether it works with the other Vue versions as well), there is an ultimatively easy way: Double-Click on your camera to open the options menu, activate "post processing" and pull the "saturation" bar completely to the left. Et voila: black and white!!!