B&W images are in colour!

[Cathathome]

I was playing with my XT's b&w settings today, and was eager to get them onto the computer to see them. They were monochrome on my LCD screen while I was shooting.

Well don't they all just show up in colour! What's up with that?

[GB1]

Cath - Not totally clear what happened here .. you say that you thought they would be in color even though you set the camera settings to B&W? If so, I don't think the camera captured them in color .. I think you're now stuck with B&W images. If that happened, chalk it up to experience.

But if you're saying that you tried setting it to B&W and they came out color, that is very odd.................

G

[Frog]

If you shot b/w, they should be b/w when loaded to computer.
Is that what happened?

[Cathathome]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I set the camera to shoot B&W, but when I opened them in Picassa/RawTherapee/ACR, they were in colour.

Is it because they were shot in RAW? It looks like the only way to get them back to b&w is to convert them - not what I wanted

[GB1]

Cath - If you're using the Canon Rebel XT, I took a quick look online and found something in the user's manual that implies that RAW images are still saved as color. It doesn't say that you simply get color but that you can "convert" them to color .. but I guess it's not giving you the option to immediately see them in B&W.. Hmm.

See the image of the page below. - GB

[Frog]

That's strange. Wondering now if my D80 does that. I've always just converted to b/w on computer.

[Ultra Magnus]

imo, shooting in b&w is always a bad idea.

First off, any in camera color settings apply only jpgs. Raw files are just that, raw sensor data. Only when the raw data is converted to an image file do any color settings apply.

But going back to my original satement, why let the camera decide how to convert your image to black and white, when you can use the color mixer in ps or equivalent tools in other programs to custom tailor how you want your image converted?

BM

[Cathathome]

I took another look at my files using ZoomBrowser (Canon's software), Windows Picture Viewer & Microsoft Raw Image Viewer - all of these display the images in black and white. Raw Converter Programs seem to override the camera settings and show the colours. I can't find any options for changing this.

@BM: by shooting in black and white, I was hoping to determine how well I was exposing and I wanted to see how the camera reported the tonal range. I also thought that processing the images might be easier since I find it difficult to achieve consistent results with the different images/tools.

Thanks all for your help!

[OldClicker]

I would expect RAW to be in color or it wouldn't be RAW - it would be processed. - TF

[Ultra Magnus]

afaik, the in camera b&w setting is the same as running the saturation slider all the way down in you pp software.

BM

[GB1]

From what I've read, when shooting B&W all pix are actually taken in color and then converted in-camera to B&W. So I would guess that there's really no difference, or not much difference, between in-camera and post processing conversion.

G

[tayl0124]

I have found just the same thing as you. However if you don't want to have to process the file than set your camera for jpeg, the smooth quarter oval with a L next to it(unsure how else to describe it). However if you still want to had the raw data you can have your camera save it in both raw and jpeg. This is what I used to do. Now I shoot in raw only, saves space and I don't end up with what seems to be duplicates of every shot.

[Wild Wassa]

Shooting in B/W I find, can give me one particular advantage ... I can actually see the tonalities depending on the filter that I've chosen, within the camera, ... immediately after the image has been shot.

I can then make changes to the digi' zone system at the time of photography. I can do the same in the digi' darkroom (of course) ... but I want the shot right with all the sublties in the camera at the time of shooting.

Of course I/we can separate the image into RBG layers and choose which layer gives the most interesting tonal range and expectation equivalent to using the different filters, but there is something quite nice and special about being the absolute calculating photographer ... above being just a digi' darkroom technician.

I'm a digi' darkroom technician secondly ... who saves my photographic arse often.

More power to the Black and White in-camera shooters, I reckon. There should be more of us.

Warren.