Mono

After a year of owning my K-m I am going to try some black & white but should I set the K-m to mono or use Photo-shop to convert colour to mono. I will experiment with both but would like to know what the experienced in mono consider the best option.

Thanks

Les

Photoshop will give you the most degree of control. If you want 'fine art' then this will easily give you the approach.

Mono in-camera gives you the most spontaneity.

If you need the best of both worlds, then shoot RAW+JPG (or just RAW) with the camera set to mono. That'll give you the immediacy of in-camera mono, plus the ability to tweak to your heart's content later

Matt

I ave been playing with this on my K7, I now even have Mono set up as the User settings!

I like the in camera setting as it forces me to think like I have B&W film loaded up! A just select the appropriate filter from the menu and off I go! The filter effect can be previewed on the last picture taken so there is plenty of room to experiment.

Thanks. In camera setting is the way I will start.

Les

The best way to get good monochrome images without using a computer is to shoot the image in colour like normal. Never shoot with your camera in the Black and White setting. Never.

(If you do that, all you're doing is limiting your options and getting a mediocre B&W conversion. Shooting in colour so you can convert with more control later is the way to go.)

You then take the colour image and use the camera to do the conversion afterwards. Why would that be? Because the onboard image editing on the K20, K7 and K-X is awesome. For the conversion, you can choose to emphasize the Red, Green, Blue or "Infrared" channels of the image. This allows for some very striking B&W conversions. And it's quicker and simpler than using the channel mixer in photoshop.

Seriously, it's the best way.

Black and white conversion in camera can raise the noise levels in high iso quite a bit, compared to post processing. I like a bit of film-like grainy noise, but not the blotches my k200d gave when I tried to process iso1600 in camera. But try it and see what works for you! Would be interested to see how you get on.

Well yes, if for some reason you're shooting at really high ISOs, then of course there's nothing in camera that will be as good as something like the Noise Ninja plugin in Photoshop.

I'm simply talking about the simplest way to convert your images to Black and White, and my advice still stands.

FYI. If you do go down the photoshop route, the best way (IMHO) to convert is using a BW adjustment layer avilable in CS3 onwards. Lightroom also uses a similar system (although not presented as a layer).

I like Matt's idea of shooting in jpeg+RAW simply because "seeing" in BW is something that comes with experience and being able to preview your image that way would be a good learning tool. Did I understand beakynet correctly that the K-7 allows you to digitally add filters too, e.g., a high contrast red filter or a YG filter? That would also be awesome for learning how these filters impact on a monochrome image.

As much as I love using film, for teaching/learning digital is so much more effective.

Best wishes, Kris.