8 tips for how to shoot black and white photos

Modern photographs are mostly color, but taking black and white photographs can actually make your work more artistic.

1. Shoot RAW

Many novices are not used to shooting RAW. Although RAW is a relatively large format, it allows a lot of fine-tuning (exposure, contrast, saturation, etc.), which is especially useful for shooting digital black and white pictures.

2. Use low ISO

Digital photo noise is not the same as the negative, to make a beautiful digital black and white photo, ISO as low as possible, so that the quality and black and white outline will be more prominent.

3. Take black and white photos with high, middle and low light modulation

Black and white photographs are mainly divided into three categories: high, middle and low.

Highlights: highlights are mostly white photographs, only a small part of the black, this type of photographs can bring readers lively, light, elegant feeling, suitable for beautiful scenery, children, girls, and so on;

Mid-tone: mid-tone photos are the most popular. When the average distribution of black, white and gray parts of the photos is the mid-tone photos, the feeling of photos often depends on the contrast of the photos.

Low light tone: low light tone is the opposite of high light tone. Most of the picture is black with only a few highlights of white. This photo brings a deep, mysterious, strong and strong feeling.

It's important to note that when we're shooting, we don't settle for taking a picture of a certain tune. Instead, it's better to measure the scene carefully and take that one. High-tuned photographs should be exposed more than one level, while low-modulated photographs can be reduced to express stronger feelings.

4.Look for high contrast

Because black and white photos lack color, only black and white contrast can express the feeling. Therefore, the contrast is very important in black and white photos. When we take photos (even if we take color photos and turn them into black and white with soft color), we need to find out the high-contrast (dark and obvious) environment.

5.Look for patterns and textures

In color photographs, because color is easy to get the focus, so patterns and textures are often overlooked, and a good black and white photographs of one element is the expression of a unique pattern and texture, you can try more!

6. Pay attention to the light

We should pay attention to the direction and intensity of the light when shooting. For example, when shooting with side light, the portrait can bring the effect of half-silhouette, while the single light source can generate shadow, and we can observe carefully when shooting. Of course, silhouette is also a good experiment!

7. Shooting dynamic sky and water

You can add an element - dynamic to your photos when shooting black and white landscapes. In fact, it is the moving cloud or water, because the cloud or water is white, will produce a white picture, the moving cloud and water will bring layer upon layer of light and dark, immediately make the black and white photo vivid!

Convert color photographs to black and white

If you have a few color photographs, or want to take a color and then use the software to convert it to black and white, there are many ways to do this, but the easiest way to do this is to adjust the color within Photoshop. Of course, if you are shooting a RAW file then it is more convenient to convert from a RAW editor!