These tips will help you be able to recognize good black and white photo opportunities and to be able to photograph and edit them for the best results.

The reason so many photography courses and schools teach black and white photography early on is that it is an excellent way to train the eye to recognize what makes a striking composition.

As vibrant and colorful as a sky at sunset may be, it is often the lines, shapes and curves that move the eye through the picture. So while the colors can be quite beautiful, black and white makes the photo more dynamic.

Despite all of its benefits, black and white photography became less popular in the 70’s and 80’s because of the popularity of color. It soon became increasingly more challenging to find places that sold and processed black and white film. Now thanks to digital cameras and photo editing software, black and white photography is back!

How to Recognize Stunning Black and White Photographs

Although choosing the best subjects for black and white is very subjective, many professional photographers will agree that the following types of compositions beg for black and white:

  • Photos that convey strong emotion. Often times, color can be a distraction whereas black and white makes the emotion or feeling seem more strong.
  • Images that don’t have a full spectrum of colors like Ansel Adam’s Yosemite “Moon and Half Dome.”
  • Low contrast images such as photographs shot on dark overcast days.
  • Any subject with the lines, contours, shadows and curves that you just know will look great in black and white. How do you know? By studying black and white photos! Just look online for “Ansel Adams.”. Or you can just search for “famous black and white photos.”
  • Look at B&W photography books at the library. There are many places to appreciate and learn this artful form of photography!

Create Black & White Photography with a Photo Editor

If upon seeing a subject, you know it’s got to be a black and white photo, then you could set your camera to B&W and take the picture. However, if you gain experience with your photo editor, you will find you can create even better B&W images by shooting in color first and then desaturating in the editor. Another added benefit to this method is that you’ll never accidentally take a day’s worth of pictures in black and white because you forgot to reset the camera!

Check the White Balance on Your Camera

While the easiest way to change a color to black and white is to desaturate it with your photo editor, this technique doesn’t let you control how the primary colors work together to produce a grayscale brightness. If you create a good white balance when taking the picture, then the simple desaturation method may be all you need do in the photo editor.

Make Use of Your Photo Editor’s Color Swatches

By using a photo editor, you can also apply color swatches. Even though we don’t see the colors in black and white, there are tones, and these are created by colors. Color swatches work a lot like the way color lenses work on a SLR camera. For example, filters in the yellow to orange range are flattering to the skin while green creates nice tones for nature pictures.

And last but not least, don’t forget to share your favorite black and white photographs. Black and white photos look great framed and deserve to be on the wall for all to see. Choose frames that showcase rather than distract from your black and whites with simple clean lines. Black and white pictures look especially good framed in silver picture frames, gold picture frames and even black picture frames depending upon the style of the image. Hopefully, this article has inspired you to take more black and white photographs!

Technorati Tags: , , ,