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Black and White Photography Tips - Ways to Improve Your Pictures

By Autumn Lockwood

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 03May2010
Word count: 616
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These black and white photography tips will help you to recognize good black and white photo subjects and to be able to photograph and edit these for the best effects.

Black and white photography is an excellent way to train the eye to recognize remarkable photo composition which is why so many photography courses and schools teach black and white early on.

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.

In spite of its attributes, after the media went full color in the 70's and 80's black and white photography faded. 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 Great Black and White Pictures

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 lacking a full spectrum of colors; for example, a city scape or 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 can you tell? By studying black and white photos! Just look online for "Ansel Adams." Or search for "famous black and 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

Once you see a subject and know it would like best in black and white, then you can always set your camera to B&W and take it. But once you get experience with using your photo editing software, you'll find that you can create even better black and white images by shooting in color first and then desaturating it 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 Your Camera's White Balance

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 have good white balance in your picture, then simple desaturation may be all you need to do in the software editor.

Make Sure to Use Your Photo Editing Software'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 finally, don't forget to show off your black and white photographs. Beautiful black and white photos deserve to be framed for all to see. Choose frames that showcase rather than distract from your black and whites with simple clean lines. Hope you enjoyed these four black and white photography tips and have fun taking your next black and white photo!

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames. Shop online and see our selection of square picture frames in a wide variety of sizes and colors. Visit our website to see our selection of wood and metal square picture frames or call 1-800-780-0699.

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