I have been thinking about how a digital camera takes a B&W image compared to a color image. After studying CCD?s and CMOS chips on the web, as well as monitors I have come to a few conclusions that are not in line with nplus?s statements about taking images in B&W mode. First lets look at the digital camera itself compared to a film camera. A digital camera captures light as it sees it. This is in color. The CCD is not changed when the mode is changed to B&W, sepia, infrared, or any other ?modes?. What is changed is the processing of the image itself. The fact remains that the CCD (or CMOS) chip is still seeing the image in color. The processing of the image is what is changed to show the selected effect. In this case it is changed to B&W. The fact remains that the CCD is capturing a color image not a B&W one. The process that changes the image to B&W on our display device is software within the camera itself. When using standard color captures and then post processing them to B&W we are only changing the methods and software used to alter the image. Whether you change the image in the camera or in post processing software is irrelevant, it is still a conversion of a color image to a B&W or grayscale image. Here is why. Our media chip in a digital camera captures light and converts that light into an electrical charge that is then converted into a value by the software in the camera. The software then takes the color value and translates that value into a color value. The color value is then matched to a range within the palette that has been assigned by what mode the camera is in. The charge is matched to the closest value in our chosen palette, and then the resulting data is transferred to memory. This is the information that is then sent to our display device. The fact still remains that the value of this charged particle is the same, but the color palette used is what has been changed. The palettes used are determined by software developers not the chip. With film it works a bit differently. The film is exposed to light and this creates a negative value or exposure. There is no selection of color palettes nor is there a translation of value. Film only accepts the values for which it is constructed there are no alternatives. Color film sees a different image that B&W film. B&W film sees the light differently than color film, however, the image itself is captured differently on each surface because film perceives the image differently and hence different effects to the final image. Now lets take a quick look at monitors. When we see a grayscale image on our screens are we really seeing the color gray? Actually, no we aren?t. We are seeing what our eyes perceive as gray. In actuality the monitor you are looking at right now only has the ability to display information based on 3 colors (this is not considering LCD screens), Red, Green and Blue (RGB). Before you scream, But I have my monitor set to 16 million colors! consider this; the data sent from your graphics card includes only RGB. A standard video cable has 15 pins, 6 are devoted to color and 9 to other types of data. The 6 we are concerned with are Red In and Out, Green In & Out and Blue In and Out. (The entire pin setup can be found here http://computer.howstuffworks.com/monitor2.htm) So how do we see 16 million colors with only 3 color input? By adding saturation and hue. How red is the red, how green is the green and how blue is the blue? By changing the factors of RGB, saturation and hue we create over 16 million variations of color. Trust me on this one and please don?t ask me to do the math. What does all this mean and how does it relate to taking B&W images on a digital camera? Basically it just means that if you shoot in B&W on a digital camera you are trusting a programmer?s opinion on what palette to use, and if you convert your image in Photoshop or a similar program you are trusting your opinion on what palette to use and how your monitor converts that palette. Magick Michael