Black White Photography

Black white photography is a creative way to showcase your digital imagery. Black and white photos can be more expressive and more inviting than color photos.

Which do you prefer?

This may be a hard question to answer because each of these two visual expressions are very subjective.

Depending on your intent as a creative artist, you may have a strong preference for one over the other.

Regardless of which, there is a strong power in black and white imagery.

Black and white photography is used to strip away any distracting elements and instead cause the viewer to be drawn into the image of its own accord.

Two Images

One is in color and...

... one is in black and white!

The black and white photograph was processed in Adobe Lightroom to:

• Enhance the blacks
• Increase exposure
• Desaturate the image
• Create a vignette

Which do you think is the better photo?

Black and White Photography Tips

All digital cameras record RGB data. This is color!

All digital cameras also have settings to take photos in "Black and White" mode. However, this is not true black and white.

If you open up photos taken in this manner you will find that they are mostly shades of gray.

To get good black and white photos, shoot in RAW and do some creative post-processing.

My applications of choice for post-processing are Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.

I sometimes use both but I find Lightroom to give a faster work flow.

Love your camera. Love yourself. Love your photos.

Related Reading

• Should I shoot in RAW or JPG?
• Adobe Lightroom