Need help?
A Guide to Black and White Photography
Kamera Express
Everything about black-and-white photography
Until 1935, there was nothing other than the black-and-white photo. That year, Kodachrome was introduced, and today the colour photo has far surpassed black and white. Still, the black-and-white image continues to have a unique appeal. In fact, some photos look much better without colour. But what should you pay attention to when shooting in black and white? Plenty of reason to take a deeper dive into photographing in monochrome tones.
What makes a black-and-white photo special? In the end, it’s largely a matter of personal taste – for some people it evokes nostalgic feelings. Yet it can definitely rescue an otherwise mediocre photo. This is because shapes and composition come across differently in black and white. Colours don’t distract, which means more attention goes to form. Black-and-white tones can also allow the mood and emotion of a photo to stand out better. Think, for example, of a prison, which looks even more bleak in black and white.
What should I pay attention to in black-and-white photography?
Shapes and textures
As mentioned, shapes and structures stand out better in a black-and-white photo. This is why portrait or nude photography is often done in black and white. It can be stunning to photograph a striking face in black and white so the model’s characteristic features are highlighted even more. In black and white, skin textures like wrinkles become much more visible. Normally, various colours in a photo hide subtle textures and draw attention away. Even skin tone only distracts from what truly matters.
Light
Where soft morning or evening light can be beautiful in a colour photo, in black and white it’s often better to look for hard light. This creates strong contrasts that make your photo pop off the screen – or the wall, of course! A photo with low contrast results in flat grey tones where nothing really stands out. That’s not what we want. While you might usually avoid backlight, in black and white it actually offers opportunities because of the strong contrasts it produces.
Contrast
Contrast is important in colour photography, but in black and white it’s even more crucial. Contrast is partly created by (hard) light, but colours also play a major role – even in black-and-white images. This is because your camera sees all colours as shades of grey. Bright tones like red, green, blue and skin tones are rendered as 18%, or neutral grey. Pastel tones such as yellow, beige, baby blue and light skin tones appear as light grey. At the other end of the spectrum are the dark tones, which of course show up as dark grey in your photo. It’s important to keep this in mind.
Composition
With shapes, light and contrast in mind, it’s also important to pay close attention to composition. Because colour differences disappear, similar tones and subjects can quickly blend together. Make sure your subjects are clearly separated from one another. A good black-and-white photo looks like a chessboard, where the black and white squares never overlap.
Tips & advice
You now know what to look out for when creating a black-and-white photo. Before you head out, here are a few practical things to keep in mind!
Shoot in colour
Keep shooting in colour – you can always convert to monochrome later, but not the other way around. Also, shooting in black and white gives you a standard conversion that is usually quite flat and low in contrast. You lose all colour information when setting your camera to black and white, which limits your editing options later.
Shoot in RAW
Maybe you already do: shooting in RAW. If not, this is definitely the time to try it. The file is slightly larger, but you get much more data to tweak later. If you set your camera to RAW, you can set your camera to black and white. The colours are still stored in the file. This way, you immediately see the black-and-white result without losing your creative freedom.
Keep your ISO low
It’s always advisable to keep your ISO as low as possible, but it’s even more important in black-and-white photography. A high ISO results in more noise, which is especially visible in the darker areas of your photo. Because these parts are likely prominent in your composition, the noise will stand out even more. This can ruin an otherwise beautiful image.
Use a colour filter
It may sound counterintuitive, but you can achieve beautiful results with colour filters in black-and-white photography. All colours in your scene that correspond with the colour of the filter will appear lighter in your monochrome photo. The opposite colour will appear darker. This allows you to create even more contrast. Besides physical filters, some cameras can digitally simulate this effect.
Bonus tip: try HDR
HDR photos are almost always seen in colour, but due to the high dynamic range, HDR also works beautifully in black and white. Sometimes the colours in an HDR photo can look a bit exaggerated. Not your thing? Try converting it to black and white. For more information, check our page on HDR photography.
How do I edit a black-and-white photo?
Once you’ve taken your photo, it’s time to fine-tune it in post-processing. You can use various programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Corel PaintShop Pro or Capture One Pro. All of these allow you to convert a colour photo to black and white or further tweak an already monochrome image.
Although the colour photo was already beautiful, the colours actually only distracted from the subject and the elegant lines. In editing, we used dodging and burning. We darkened the sky to make it more dramatic and contrast-rich. The buildings, on the other hand, were lightened slightly. This makes them stand out more against the sky. Finally, we boosted the overall contrast a bit more.
Play with colour filters
Earlier we mentioned the tip about colour filters. You can also apply this trick in your favourite photo-editing program, provided the colour information is still present in your file. For example, with a red filter you can make a blue sky almost black and strongly emphasise the clouds.
Dodging and burning
Do you prefer to lighten or darken individual parts of the photo manually? Try experimenting with dodging and burning, a technique originating from the darkroom. Parts of an image are lightened (dodging) and others are darkened (burning). Many programs include these tools by default, but you can also apply them manually using layers.
Boost the contrast
Of course, you can always add more contrast to make light areas lighter and dark areas darker. Don’t hold back when editing black-and-white photos – it can really make your subject stand out.
Editing guide
In our photo-editing guide, we take a deeper look at the various editing options available.
