bw, sepia

[kushki]

hi, i have recently bought kodak cx7330 which i believe is good for a beginner like me. It has 3 colour modes which includes b&w , sepia which created interest in me . Can neone pls give me knowledge about b&w, sepia . How and when to shot them?? what is the difference between them?? can i use neone of them those two in combination of colours in a same shot?/
ne comments will be appreciated
thanks

[Trevor Ash]

Hi Kushki, and welcome aboard.

B&W stands for Black and White. All this means is that the photograph will be converted to one that only has varying tones of black and white. In other words, all the color goes away.

Sepia on the other hand is VERY similar to black and white. In fact, the easiest way to desribe sepia is an image that is black and white but with a slight single tone of color added to the whole image.

There is no particular correct time to use these modes. It's all up to personal tastes. It's just an effect afterall. If you like the effect you should use it, otherwise don't.

I do have one piece of advice to offer however. Try to avoid shooting with those modes in the camera. The reason I say this is that if you shoot using those modes in the camera then you can never get the color information back again. It's permanent. It's better to shoot using the normal color modes and then convernt to black and white or sepia after the image is taken and on your computer by using photo editing software. Most computer software that comes with your camera will have these features.

[Bohh]

Hi,

I'm just starting out too, but I read somewhere that shooting with B&W mode is different than if you take a color photo and convert it to B&W. This never made sense to me, but I took it as true.

I'm not doubting your word Trevor, I'm just wanting to clear this up in my head.

Are there any looses in quality or anything when taking a photo in color and converting it?


Thanks,

Bohh

[Trevor Ash]

Hi,

I'm just starting out too, but I read somewhere that shooting with B&W mode is different than if you take a color photo and convert it to B&W. This never made sense to me, but I took it as true.

Hiya. It sounds like you're saying that you heard the quality of a photo shot b&w in camera is better than if you converted it to b&w afterwards. Well, let's evaulate that statement for a little bit.

One of the first conclusions I would come to is that different cameras would probably do a better or worse job than others at converting to black and white. I can draw the same conclusion about post editing software that does the same thing.

Another conclusion I can come to is that each photo is unique and may not look as good in black and white as another.

I draw these conclusions based on knowledge and experience. I realize I'm not providing any evidence to support them and will leave that as a task for those that might question them.

With these conclusions I would expect that it's possible for some camera's to perform a better (better defined as more pleasing, subjective) conversion than post software. And vice versa. And while the camera might do a better job on one particular photo you might find that automatic softtware does a better job on other photos.

However, with in camera conversion you have absolutely no control over how it does the conversion. This is a BIG deal for a lot of people and would be the sole reason why many of us do it post shot. Would you agree that a capable person who had full control of the conversion in their hands has a pretty good chance of getting better results than an uncontrollable camera?

If not, I suggest you read this post real quick to see just what kind of differences there are when using different b&w conversion methods. Keep in mind that the camera is going to give you "one" method. How do you know that the camera is using the method you prefer for a particular image? You don't!

http://forums.pcphotoreview.com/showthread.php?t=397

If you're not comfortable with using software then clearly the in camera conversion is an awesome feature when you want b&w shots. I don't want this post to make it sound like I think in camera conversion is bad or worthless because it's not.

Are there any looses in quality or anything when taking a photo in color and converting it?

Well, the easy answer to this question is "no". However, quality isn't usually defined as one single characteristic. Usually, quality means many things like noise, sharpness, dynamic range, shadow detail, highlight detail, moire, sharpening artifacts, etc.

Having said that, the long answer is that it's subjective depending on the qualities you're looking at. It may in fact lose quality in certain areas, in particular dynamic range. Dynamic range is most important in a high contrast image that contains important shadow AND highlight detail.

But the fact that you have complete control over the process and can choose to sacrifice the qualities you don't care about for the ones you do usually means you'll produce a better overall product.

Geez, see what happens when you get me going?!?!?!?

[Bohh]

Thanks for the thourough reply! That cleared it up a lot and makes much more sense.

Thanks again,

Bohh

[kushki]

thanks for making me throught this stuff trevor.

i have seen some pics and some videos too where in black and white shot, only some part of the image is coloured or the whole image has some colouring hint (i.e. green or blue used the most). What is that called?? How to get those effects in ne photo??

i have adobe photoshop 7. Which software do u suggest or recommend to edit the pics??

once again thanks

[EmbeddedMatt]

Trevor's post is right on the money but I would just like to add that with digital cameras all conversions to black and white are done by software. A camera loaded with black and white film captures the image directly as monochrome, but the "film" is built in to a digital camera and that built in film is color. So the questions becomes do you use the camera's software (aka firmware) or do you Adobe's/Jasc's/etc. software for the conversion. Trevor's post covers that decision nicely. I just think it's worth explicitly stating the difference between black and white film and digital monochrome.