There are different points of view about black and white photography. Some believe that this was a technical limitation of the past that needs to be overcome and moved on. While others see it as a creative choice to be explored at great depths.
Camera design technology is improving with more emphasis on improving color ranges, so why do you make the decision to shoot or process your images in black and white? In this article, we'll look at five reasons why you might want to shoot or convert your images to black and white.
1. Black and white photos help you see differently.
The old "masters" of photography shot in black and white initially because they didn't have a choice. Even with the advent of Kodachrome, which introduced color photography to the world, black and white still existed. And all because black- white photography was (and for some still is) photography in its purest form.
When you remove color, the focus shifts to other compositional elements in the image. This includes lines, form and texture, contrasts and tones.
With that in mind, it's obvious that not all images convert well to black and white. So look at all the elements and highlight what else you need to work with besides color.
Often black and white helps to develop a different perspective on what we are used to seeing and what our photographic eye nurtures.
2. Black and white eliminates distractions
You are used to seeing the world in color, and there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes this contributes to the fact that other elements and details are lost or taken for granted. Some of the elements (highlighted earlier) required for a great photo include contrast, texture, lighting, and shape.
When you shoot black and white photos, you are challenging yourself to remove color distraction. These include color tints and differences in color temperature (ambient light sources), as well as specific highlights that may be in the background or detract from your story.
Monochrome shots force you to focus on form and texture when composing. If the emphasis is on sharing colors, then these elements are sometimes overlooked. In black and white photography, distracting colors are translated into shades of gray.
3. Black and white photography offers creative choices
Since your world is colored, it's safe to say that color photography depicts reality and is more realistic. So black and white photography is seen as an interpretation of reality, or how you interpret what you see.
When you remove color, you are not only isolating different elements, but you are also forced to look for how they relate to each other. It will help you explore and create various ways tell your story.
When you remove color, you remove what your viewer is used to seeing. Now you need to find the stronger elements of the scene and figure out how to use them to convey what you want to portray.
4. Adds emotion or mood
Something about the variation in tonal ranges, rich blacks and deep contrasts appeals to us psychologically. This creates a connection that makes you stop and pay attention to what is depicted.
Many photographers use black and white images to describe their travels and street photography, as well as when depicting religious or cultural events. Monochrome in some genres connects and enhances emotions and moods.
5. Black and white photography is timeless
Even though this is the last item on the list, it is still one of the most common reasons why some photographers shoot in black and white. Monochrome photography is perceived all the time.
Black and white photographs seem to transcend reality and take you back in time. Historical color schemes that have been characteristic of certain types of film, or trends in digital photography can indicate the date your images were created. Removing the color makes it impossible to find out when the image was taken.
Bonus
You no longer need to imagine what your scene will look like in black and white, because modern technologies camera lets you try it on the spot and see if it works. While some photographers prefer to shoot in black and white right away, others prefer to shoot in color and then process or convert their images to black and white to get a different or better tonal range.
Note. If you shoot in RAW format and set the settings to monochrome, the preview on the LCD will show the image in black and white. But all colors will be stored in the file data and will be available at the post-processing stage. It gives you the best of both worlds - a quick preview in black and white and the ability to convert later.
This image was shot in black and white using the camera's monochrome settings.
This image was taken in color and then converted to black and white.
Conclusion
While black and white photography still plays an important role in photography, please note that not all subjects translate well into this mode. Even though a strong composition does not depend on color, sometimes the power of a photo is its color. That's why it's good to know when to use black and white.
If you're interested in monochrome, look for other compositional elements such as texture, shape, lines, and contrast. Experiment with shooting and processing black and white images and find out what you like best.
Did you also notice this strange flash mob on VK and Facebook? Social media users in recent times Increasingly, they post mysterious photos on their pages. Two years have passed since the ice bucket challenge went around the Earth, and we still meet the next viral challenges. The bucket of ice water was still clearer, and the meaning of new promotions is getting thinner every day.
The new viral "challenge" is even more mysterious. It doesn't offer users any explanation at all. People post black-and-white photos of themselves with the words "challenge accepted" on their Facebook and VK pages, often tagging friends in the comments to challenge them. Friends do the same.
After coming across a few of these messages, you wonder “what is going on?”. You start to "google": why people do it. And yet you find an explanation, here are a few of them from top tops info.
Most people say that the challenge with black and white photographs is being held to raise people's awareness of cancer. The idea is to fill the news feeds with black and white photographs of support for the fight against the disease. It may be associated with some major charitable organization, although there is no talk of any donations or other actions yet.
It is most likely that someone started the action with good intentions to draw people's attention to the problem, and the details of the project got lost somewhere along the way. It is also possible that the reason was invented after the action gained momentum and became “viral”. Interestingly, some people share their pictures with an explanation of why they posted them.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that black and white photo attracts newcomers inspired by the work of René Maltet, Arthur Elgort, and of course, Henri Cartier-Bresson. But, as before, few people manage to make their work better by simply translating them into black and white. This is a rather capricious genre with a special character ... but let's get to the point: how to understand that a frame is really “asking” for this processing format?
We mentioned the word “processing” for a reason, because one of the most common beginner mistakes is to turn on the BW mode directly on the camera. In order to make your photos black and white, it is better to use specialized software, since there are free programs for photo processing. This is the only way you can achieve the effect you want and not spoil the image.
The most confident candidates for B&W are pictures in which you want to emphasize the difference in textures. Let's say you have a model with delicate porcelain skin in a straw hat or a coarse knit sweater. Sometimes the contrast is hidden even deeper than in the external texture, for example, when in one frame we see representatives of different generations or buildings of different eras and styles.
"Antique" This is perhaps the most common reason to convert a photo to BW. They look good in black and white buildings of the romantic or industrial era. But, I would like to emphasize that monochrome is not the main distinguishing feature of old photographs, which we are trying to imitate in this case.
“Film effect” is also a special dynamic range of photography, graininess, photo atmospheric. In the next article, we will definitely touch on these topics in more detail.
By the way, you can consider converting photos to black and white as one of the options for uniqueizing photos and as a way to get unique pictures for the site.
Often B&W helps save a card that is a failure in terms of color or with inappropriate details that are too bright and attract unnecessary attention. It often happens (especially for beginners) that a model comes to the shooting in a set of clothes that are very unsuccessfully combined or too bright colors. In general, outfits in “acid” shades greatly drown out the natural beauty and very few people really suit. What to do in such cases, you have already guessed.
Sometimes the viewer needs to be helped to focus on the content of the photo rather than the form. If your profile is a reportage, you will have to resort to B&W often.
In general, it is important to develop a black and white vision of any picture. This helps a lot to abstract from insignificant details, to feel and catch the essence of the frame. Let the black-and-white photos of old-school photographers become the standard for you, try to look at them more often. Watching black-and-white films helps a lot to develop, both old (for example, the Soviet adaptation of Jack London's The White Fang) and newer, up to Rodriguez-Tarantino's Sin City. This will not only inspire you to new B&W photography feats, but is also guaranteed to improve your skills in composition, framing, seeing light spots.
If your screen suddenly turns black and white in Windows 10, there are not many reasons for this error to occur, it is mainly related to the operation of the special features of the system, namely the Color Filter. This article will describe the fastest and most convenient options for fixing this error.
Black and white screen Windows 10
The main reasons for the black and white screen of Windows 10:
- color filter
- Graphics driver settings
- Third party software
- Monitor screen settings
The most common cause of the error is the Accessibility - Color Filter setting. To turn it off, go to Options - Accessibility - Color and High Contrast and disable the item Apply color filter.
In more recent Insider builds (for example, 17083), the accessibility menu has changed and this item has moved to a separate Color Filters tab with function settings.
The Windows key combination + CTRL + C also allows you to enable / disable this feature, but in recent builds you can control the launch of the Color Filter by keyboard shortcut, how to do this using the registry editor will be described later.
How to turn off the black and white screen in Windows 10 through the registry
Open the registry editor (Win + R - regedit ) and follow the branch - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ColorFiltering
The following values will determine the functionality of the color filter:
- Active - determines whether the filter is enabled or disabled
1 = Enabled
0 = Disabled - FilterType - defines the filter type
0 = Grayscale
1 = Inverted colors
2 = Inverted grayscale
3 = Red-green (impaired perception of green, Deuteranopia)
4 = Red-green (impaired perception of red, Protanopia)
5 = Blue-yellow (Tritanopia) - HotkeyEnabled - allow using the keyboard shortcut +CTRL + C to enable or disable the filter
1 = Allowed
0 = Disabled
Video card settings
If, after performing the steps in Windows 10, the screen for some reason remains black and white, then the settings of your video card may be the reason.
For Nvidia devices: go to the desktop, right click on free space and select Nvidia Control Panel.
On the Display tab, open Adjust desktop color settings. We need the Digital Intensity extension, in the case of black and white, it can be set to 0%.
For AMD\ATI Radeon devices Several programs have been created to control the parameters of the video card.
For "old" devices - Catalyst Control Center. Resetting the color parameters is done with the Defaults button in the Display Color tab.
For "new" devices - AMD Radeon Settings. Open the Display settings and reset the settings.
As a last resort, you can update the video adapter driver. Open Device Manager - Display adapters, then right-click on your video card and select Update driver.
In the first case, try Automatic search for updates. If an updated driver is found and installed, the cause may be resolved.
In the second case, try selecting a previously installed driver. Select Browse this computer for drivers - Driver from the list available on this PC and install the previously installed driver.
As an alternative, you can remove the device with driver programs and reinstall them after restarting the computer. You can also use the video card driver installer and run a Clean install, in this case both the driver and software video card will be reinstalled.
Impact of third-party software
If suddenly the computer screen turned black and white in Windows 10 after installing or updating any applications and programs, then it is highly likely that they are the ones that affect the system in such an unpleasant way.
To determine the cause, we will use a "clean boot":
- Open the Task Manager window (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and open the Startup tab
- Disable All entries - this will prevent applications from automatically loading when the system is turned on.
- Then open the System Configuration window (Win + R - msconfig)
- Click the Services tab, check the box next to Hide all Microsoft services and select Disable all
Antivirus services will not be disabled as they are protected by the self-protection module.
If the problem does not appear after a reboot, you can calculate which application caused such an error using the selection method - gradually turning on applications and services until an erroneous one is detected.
Monitor screen settings
The last option to resolve the issue when the screen became black and white in Windows 10 is to reset the screen or monitor settings. This option is not suitable for laptops and monoblocks, because the monitor settings are responsible for the screen settings.
In case you are using a monitor, try a factory reset.
Additionally
If the suggested options do not help, try the following:
- If the error is software in nature, perform or reinstall Windows 10
- If the error is hardware, check the error by connecting to a different PC connector or to a different display to determine the failed device.
Have a great day!
Let's figure out what the color that we see is in general. Why do we see grass as green, autumn maple leaves as yellow, and strawberries as red? It is explained simply. Rays of light, falling on the surface of a blade of grass, leaf or berry, are partially absorbed by its surface, and partially reflected. These reflected rays of a certain wavelength catch our eyes, and then the brain "decodes" the information and gives the answer: we have green, or yellow, or red.
The same happens with other colors of the solar spectrum (rainbow). But there is no black, no gray, no white in the rainbow. Black means that all the rays are completely absorbed by the surface of the object, white means that they are completely reflected. Such colors are called "achromatic", that is, devoid of color. Psychologists give them great value. It is believed that white and black not only affect the mental and physical state of a person, but can also tell a lot of interesting things about him.
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