Increasing orange and red can even out a skin tone. Adjusting Colour Sliders for Black And White PhotosĪdjusting the colour sliders can affect the tones in a black and white photograph.ĭecreasing the blue is a great technique for darkening a bright sky. © Heather Milne The same building with clarity and dehaze increased, and blues and reds adjusted. Queen Mary Hospital Nurse’s Hostel, converted into black and white, but with no additional editing. Use these techniques to enhance your story, not dominate the image. This results in ‘overcooked’ photographs. I see the contrast and clarity tools often used with great enthusiasm. I tend to use this only when the blacks and whites are washed out. The contrast tool can also be useful to intensify the blacks and whites. I increase the clarity to emphasise the definition between the grey tones. The clarity slider is my go-to tool when making a photo black and white. Architecture provides fantastic leading lines and in this case, negative space with the clear sky behind. Then I look at them fresh the next day to decide which one I like best. Sometimes I create a couple of variations of the same image cropped in a different way. Embrace negative space, the rule of thirds and the golden triangle and ratio. This is where the responsibility of effective cropping comes into play. Without the distraction of colour, our eyes are drawn into the shapes in a black and white photo.

Cropping for Compositionīlack and white photography loves everything about leading lines and angles. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to make beautiful black and white photographs. Lightroom and Adobe Raw will produce excellent results. Use the software and technique that you’re most comfortable with. It depends on the layers and effects that I want to experiment with. I mix it up a bit when editing my black and white photos. © Heather Milne Black and White Editing In Photoshop and Lightroom The WWI Soldiers’ Block at Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer, New Zealand. Even if you’re not photographing humans or animals. You can increase clarity and contrast to emphasise the lines and shapes.īlack and white is brilliant for evoking emotions. A modern glass and steel building in the sunlight could handle more post-production. This is so you can reflect this in post-production.Ī soft foggy morning suits subtle adjustments in black and white with a sepia tone added. Showing Emotions Through Black and White PhotosĪs you click the shutter, get a feel for the emotion and light levels in the moment.

This includes lenses, reflectors, filters, and tripods. These kind of questions will help you decide what gear to take. What’s the weather like? What kind of artificial lighting will be around? How do you want to use the final images? What’s the story you want to tell? Before you convert your photo to black and white, take a couple of giant (figurative) steps back.

Black and white images