Digital Photography - Tips and Techniques for Shooting Black&White

Shooting b&w poses a big challenge for photographers to make their subject standout despite mono-coloring. Mastering blank&white photography definitely requires a lot of practice and experience.

Here are some helpful digital photography tips and techniques when capturing black&white:
- Spotting a good subject for B&W photography requires some skill. Some colors such as red and green look relatively the same when viewed in black&white. Learning how certain colors translate to black&white is key. Spotting a good subject is also one with plenty of details and textures. Making use of strong side lighting is key to creating shadows and adding depth to your subject. It is also good to choose a subject with a strong shape or form (lines and curves present in your frame) because in a monochrome you are removing a crucial detail (color) in your subject that distinguishes one element from the other.
- Use a circular polarizer when working with direct sunlight at a 90-degree angle to you subject. This makes for darkened skies, and more saturation and less reflected light from your subjects.
- Always shoot RAW. This gives you more freedom during your post-processing even if you're processing black&white images.

Digital photography is wonderful because it enables you to be more versatile with your subjects and does not limit you to with the expenses of buying film. Here are some great digital photography ideas and techniques black&white photography:
- Character portraits. Faces that have been wrinkled and textured over time are great subjects for black&white photography.
- Black&White works well with silhouettes and backlighting and is good for portraiture and nude photography.
- You can also do black&white with street photography. Sometimes it's best to use a compact when doing street photography so people would not get conscious of your shooting. Also look for high-contrast scenes and structures with strong shadows to add a mood and emotion for your monochrome picture.
- Architecture can also be interesting subjects for black&white photography. When shooting architecture such as buildings, keep your composition simple, utilize side lighting to add depth and shadows, shoot from a low angle and use a wide-angle lens.
- Shooting animals with repeating patterns on their skin and or fur such as zebras and leopards, make for good subjects of black&white photography.

When creating black&white photographs, you can choose either to set your viewfinder to view your shot in black&white, or you can shoot in colored and do the conversion to black&white in your post-processing. Here are some digital photography tips for post-processing your b&w photos:
- Adjusting the hues and the color and saturation of a colored photograph may be best before converting it to b&w. Again, it is best to learn how certain colors translate to whites, blacks and grays when converted to black&white.
- Using the digital filters of your editing software emulates the effects of using colored filters in analog photography. For example, Photoshop has a Channel Mixer where you can check the Monochrome box and adjust the colored boxes to modify the hues of your photograph.
- Adjusting the brightness and contrast meters will also help you change the relationship of the greys, whites and blacks in your photograph.

That seems to be more than enough tips for capturing black&white photography. Time to shoot!

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Kellie is an expert when it comes to Digital Photography Tips & techniques. To find out the latest News and Tips on Digital Photography, visit New Digital Photography Tips at www.newdigitalphotographytips.com/.

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