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15 Tips For Stunning Black and White Photography

photography tips for black and white
Black and white night photography

This post is in response to a question from Matthew Tapley, who is interested in learning how to improve his black and white photography skills.  I hope this article has information that is valuable enough to you that you'd consider sharing it on Facebook or Twitter.

Black and White Photography Tip #1: Shoot in RAW.  Many times when I shoot for black and white, the photo just doesn't turn out right when I finally review it on the computer.  By shooting in RAW, you'll be able to change your mind later if the photo wasn't as great in black and white as you'd hoped.

Black and White Photography Tip #2: Give your photo some Silver Effex. Silver Effex Pro 2 is a Photoshop or Lightroom plugin that does one thing–make black and white photos look incredible.  In theory, you could replicate everything that Silver Effex Pro 2 does using Photoshop, but I have to confess that I have never been able to do it.  Black and whites look absolutely stunning in Silver Effex Pro 2.  The program is a bit pricey, but it is worth the money if you love black and white.  In fact, when I look at black and white produced by other photographers, I like to think I can tell if Silver Effex Pro 2 was used on the image.  Check it out here.

Black and White Photography Tip #3: To visualize in black and white, only pay attention to lines, shadows, and shapes. This trick is very helpful to aid photographers in pre-visualizing a black and white image even though we live in a color world.

Black and White Photography Tip #4: Pay special attention to noise. With the outstanding low light performance of modern DSLR cameras, in addition to the noise removal programs at our disposal, photographers are used to getting away with noise.

Black and White Photography Tip #5: Look for contrast. In my experience, the best black and white photos usually have some portion of the photo that is near to pure white, and some portion of the photo that is near black.  This increased contrast adds interest to the scene.

Black and White Photography Tip #6: Find a wide range of grays. Having white and black in the image will help add interest to a picture, but if other areas do not have a wide range of varying tones of gray, the photo will most likely look dull.  You can achieve a a wider range of grays by using flash to throw highlights and shadows over certain areas of the photo.

Black and White Photography Tip #7: Use a polarizer. When shooting around reflective surfaces such as water or leaves, use a polarizer to cut the reflections of the sun's light.  When color is removed from the photo, these specular highlights can be distracting the overall composition.

Black and White Photography Tip #8: Watch for texture. As long as texture is not front-lit, it will show contrast in fine details, which makes it a compelling subject for black and white.  This is why black and white photos of old items such as barns or antiques are so compelling–they have a lot of weathered texture.

Black and White Photography Tip #9: Use the correct terminology: Black and white, monochrome, grayscale. “Monochrome” means that a color is placed on a neutral background.  Therefore, black and white images, which put black on a white background, are a type of monochrome image.  Grayscale is merely a way to show black and white images on a computer, which uses a reduced set of shades of gray.

Black and White Photography Tip #10: Look for patterns. Patterns are interesting because of their ordered repetition.  Color merely distracts us from giving the pattern our attention.  By using black and white, images of patterns are far more compelling.  Once you start looking for patterns to shoot in black and white, you'll notice them everywhere: cars in a parking lot, the shoes of a wedding party standing in line, or a row of bushes.

black and white photography tip
“Drama in the Skies” – by Jim Harmer

Black and White Photography Tip #11: Long exposures love black and white. I read this tip on the fantastic Digital Photography School website and decided to try it on an image that I took a few months ago.  I didn't like the picture and had almost deleted it until I read that tip and applied black and white to the photo.

Black and White Photography Tip #12: B&W isn't a replacement for bad lighting, but it can soften the blow. The photo of the deer on this page is an example of a photo that looked terrible in color, but which looks nice in black and white.  I shot the photo at high-noon.  Because I used a polarizer, I was able to cut out the reflections on the leaves and mask the fact that it was shot in terrible light.

Black and White Photography Tip #13: Don't get fooled. I confess to have made this mistake many times.  Sometimes I have shot a photo that includes very little color.  For example, a close-up of a penguin, or a night sky, or a dalmatian dog.  When I see these photos in Lightroom, I often reach for the black and white tools immediately, but I am always disappointed.  If the photo is practically colorblind to begin with, it probably won't look as good in black and white as in color.

Black and White Photography Tip #14: Shoot in HDR!!! I'm actually surprised how little attention is given to black and white HDRs on the web.  I am so convinced of the merit of the black and white HDR that I spent an entire chapter in my HDR eBook talking explaining how to do it.  HDR is great for black and white photography because it exaggerates the dynamic range and edges.  Nothing pops quite like a black and white HDR.

Black and White Photography Tip #15: HSL is the secret sauce. The last black-and-white tip is probably the most important.  When post-processing a black and white, you absolutely MUST tweak the colors in the HSL panel in Photoshop or Lightroom.  An exact tutorial on how to do this would be a blog post of its own, but your black and whites will look TEN TIMES better with an HSL adjustment.

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44 thoughts on “15 Tips For Stunning Black and White Photography”

  1. Thank you for sharing this and it is REAL tempting to run out and buy this program, especially, seeing that my b&w photos can begin to have qualities of John Sexton and other landscape photographers whose work I enjoy.

  2. #7 Absolutely. It’s also great to get a leg up on dark skies.

    #15 I’m starting to use the HSL sliders myself.

  3. Oh! I’m not the only one who takes black and white HDR photos ! By the way, I’ve read many of your posts and I think they’re just great. The tips you give are easy to understand and simply briliant. I’m learning a lot from them, so thank you 🙂

  4. Jim,

    Excellent article. I already apply most of these tips. I do process all my photos in HDR (color) first, then feed to SEP2 for B&W processing. I haven’t tried Tip# 15…I will. Do you have a flickr group for posting? I’d like to send you a pic or two. Thanks again…

    1. That is definitely surely quite accurate though I dont often use that approach myself. I guess it is like almost everything in life; there are actually extra than one approaches to get the same result. Probably the most significant factor is just to help keep moving towards your objective.

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  7. I see that I’m a bit late to the party – but this is wonderful information. hanks, Jim! A lot to think about, I especially appreciated tip #3. I’m off to go look for some lines now. 🙂

  8. Thanks for the heads up, I downloaded it and it is indeed a very versatile plug in, the first image I edited and used it with came out fantastic. Thanks again this is going to take my Black & White images to the next level.

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