When I bring renders into Photoshop and convert them to greyscale they appear far more like photographs. Anyone have any knowlege or theory's as to why this is so.

Same reason that CG stills can look far more realistic then animations. Lesser the information, easier it is to fake...

Just less of what isn't realistic - color and subtle color reflection/transmition. Boost the noise for "grain" and push the contrast and it takes the look further. Plus we are trained to accept the stylization of photographs. that is why my question about realism is always "Do you mean optical realism or photorealism". That is my take.

no wrong coloring ,specular color.

no luminance,trasparency,enviroment at all.

 

black and and white is not realistic at all thou.

just eaiser to make B/W look more like a photo.

Hi

Even color photos don't always look realistic.

The reason Ansel Adams gave for not shooting color was that you can't make it look like it really does.

It's still that way today with digital cameras.

Which gives me an idea, I've never tried making black and white Stereo 3D images.

I'll have to give that a try, might get really great sharpness and 3D effect from a high resolution B/W image with out the giant file size.

Mike

OT: For years I shot B&W on my 35mm Stereo-Realist (available light even indoors using high-speed B&W film and split-developer) and I liked them more than my color since they seemed more like historic stereograms. For use in a backlit viewer I even made B&W reversals. They seemed to suffer the 'cardboard effect' (apearance of flat layers) more than color stereograms though. Does anyone make a true B&W digital camera?

Yup. Less to get wrong. Less presented for the viewer's brain to pick out as wrong.

Also, remember... what you call realism is not realism. It is photographic equivalence.

As already mentioned above...

I think this whole theme was explored very well in the 1939 Wizard of Oz film... in fact :)

I have come to the realisation that much of what we gaze on, with our eyes, is actually colored predominantly by our emotional state... our emotional consciousness (in terms of my understanding of what that is).

B&W is more open to our minds filling in the blanks. Similarly I find 3D cinematography less convincing than 2D...

very interesting comments!

This leads me to wonder if doing 3 or 4 renders at different lighting levels and then do an HDR merdge in PS would be effective.

Also if we need more data, would rendering very large, like 4000 x 4000 improve color

Its surely all down to the balance of (accurate / convincing) diffuse colors and lighting, including the plethora of effects created by light bouncing, etc, such as reflection, refraction, diffraction...

If your goal is photo realism, then simulating the lens effects, exposure range limits of that medium, will also help...

Yep. I use distortions like pincushion or slight fish eye perspective and focus vigetting when I want to suggest something to look more photographic or optical or emotional since Poser creates a flat plane 'scientific perspective' without those distortions. As for HDRI that is a lot of work and one application of the Highlights/Shadows filter can often simulate the effect adequately enough.

Off topic but but tought may be of interest, the Nvida Face work tech demo video is pretty impressive example of digital content looking realistic, you just need to rent time on a light stage to capture your 3d face and $1000+ on a graphics card. Also the TECH video on Digital Emily is also worth a look if not already seen.

Now THAT is an idea I'd not considered! Please post your results!

Quote - very interesting comments!

This leads me to wonder if doing 3 or 4 renders at different lighting levels and then do an HDR merdge in PS would be effective.

Also if we need more data, would rendering very large, like 4000 x 4000 improve color

Photographer Ted Grant said; “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!” I think that a photograph itself is a more accessible abstract of reality, with fewer intrusions freer from distractions and more open to contemplation. Black and White photography strips away another non-essential layer, leaving the “truth,” more clear. Maybe that’s why the medium is still popular, especially for portraits. I don’t think that all of our sophisticated mega-color technology can’t add anything of value to Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.”

It is interesting to think about a Black and White render engine. I don’t know if it would have a speed advantage but it would probably be a different creative. Animal, perhaps demanding an much different way of looking at things. I sometimes think that our technical armamentarium may be leading us down a blind path. We expect each new tweak to bring us closer to a goal that always seems just around the corner – and may be more fiction than truth at that. What do you subtract from reality (or fancy) to distill it to its essential truth and what can you add without distracting from it? Maybe studying of monochrome can help. I suspect though that the answer lies somewhere in the realm of what Antoine de Saint Exupery meant when he said; "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to have to explain things to them always and forever."

Yes, I have always thought B&W is far more effective at expressing mood, texture and creating a "feeling"

Just reading the wikipedia page on eyes, the section on Rods and Cones is quite interesting. The more sensitive rods which are responsible for B&W work at lower lighting levels than the colour. Possibly the lighing levels we use for B&W images are better suited for these rods so we see more contrast based detail????

Quote - This leads me to wonder if doing 3 or 4 renders at different lighting levels and then do an HDR merdge in PS would be effective.

If you have poser pro you can render to HDR directly, you don't need to use the roundabout approach.

A B&W render egine is such an interesting thought. Can't see it ever happening but it is interesting. I sure regret that B&W motions pictures have been so much abandonded. Some of those movies were so intensly beautifull - even some of the cheap B movies. When my wife was away for a couple days once I turned the color off on the TV to see if I would miss anything... of course the quality was not like you would find with actual B&W cinematography but in fact I really didn't miss the color. Often the color is sloppy anyway.

I agree with lmckenzie's citation of ted grant's quote. 

in addition, confusion regarding relative realism between BW and colour renders (both of which may look fake to trained observer) can be ascribed to information overload.  e.g. if BW render takes 1% of viewer's cognitive processes and colour requires 5%, that would be too much info in this case.

I know this is BS but how about this as a theory, when we create B&W images its activating our night vision via the eye's rod receptors. Our night vision is much more use to poor vision and is willing to "make up" the missing information. When we render in colour the higher resolution cones become required which need much more light and detail for the brain to except what it is seeing, since we tend to use colour to pick food I suspect this part of our brain is very difficult to fool. So to make more realistic colour renders they need to be well lit and have a much higher level of believable detail which is no news to anyone.

I'm not saying this is what is actually happening, just putting it on the table for discussion.

Less for the brain to process in B&W. Also certain colours attract tyhe eye to other parts of a photograph etc.

Remember Shindlers List and the little girl in the red coat.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

All interesting ideas. I’m still puzzled though as to why would B&W seem more real than color when reality is overwhelmingly color. Whether it stimulates different structures or takes more processing power or whatever, reality still looks real. A black and white world might seem more odd, but I doubt it would seem more real. Any or all of what’s been suggested may play a role but I’m wondering if maybe part of it is the difference between 2D & 3D. That’s essentially what we’re looking at it seems, the 2D representation. Again, I’m guessing that a physical 3D model in grayscale would not look more realistic or necessarily have any more emotional appeal; why should it work going the other way? Monochrome may be somehow inherently more suited to two dimensional presentation. So, if you’re going to lose the 3rd dimension, lose the color as well. Obviously, it seems to work better for some images than others as well. I vaguely remember something about depth perception and light or color or something – never paid enough attention in those lectures ÷)

At any rate, holographs might make a good test. Would a B&W holograph have a similar effect vs. color. I’m beginning to think that the common analogy between rendering and photography, while convenient, may be too limiting - just as a film is more than a series of still pictures.

Attached Link: Film Look

I different test it would seem to me is to see if the effect is generational. People our age are well trained to accept B&W photographs... maybe younger people are not. In my experience people my age find standard video very cheap and fake looking compared to film. TV networks spend a great deal of money having video post-processed to simulate film with grain, motion blur, frame-rate and dynamic range but most young people I know seem litteraly incapable of distinguishing standard consumer video from 35mm film (E.G. soap opera from feature film). I must say though that I am finding it harder these days to distinguish high end digital from tradional film on very expensive productions.

Excellent point. It's may not be one thing, but experience would definitely be high on the possibles list. All kinds of fascinating things - do we remember better in color or mono? Zapruder was B&W (I think), Vietnamese napalm girl victim B&W(?), Kent State screaming girl - I don't remember - color I assume.

I'm not sure what effect the frentic, fast cut, hyper candy-colored media world may have on developing norms of perception etc. - not sure I want to know :-)

Yes, could be down to experience, not having seen too many B&W renders the brain could be saying "I don't know what this is but it looks like an image made from a B&W photograph so I'll put it in that bucket".