93 - Qualities that Make a Good B&W Photo (podcast now live)

[Wicked Dark]

FYI - I just wrote a blog post about this with some ideas for folks who want to make better monochrome images. Marko is also putting together a podcast about this and we loosely collaborated on these. My article is here - Black and White 101 « Wicked Dark Photography

[Marko]

Nice article Wd! I am working on this podcast as we speak and hope to publish it in the next few days.

thx! Marko

[Andrew]

Well done Ms D. It's a good place to start. You can have fun playing for hours with B&W.

[Wicked Dark]

Thanks Andrew.


and pssstt. It's Ms. D

[Marko]

Thanks so much for all th help and input everyone!
This podcast is now live Qualities of good black and white photographs | Photography podcast blog and forum - Photography.ca

Thx!
Marko

[Wicked Dark]

As I said on the blog, this is one info-packed podcast. I had no idea Canadians could talk so fast!

Oh and BTW, my Black and White 101 article made Freshly Pressed on Wordpress today. Check it! WordPress.com — Get a Free Blog Here

I'm so pysched.

[asnow]

Thanks Marko for podcast. That has sure helped me (and I'm sure many others). Thanks all who contributed suggestions. There is a lot of good information to work with and I will definitely try the monochrome live view. It should really help seeing in B&W.

[QuietOne]

One of the problems, at least for me, is determining how the colors translate to shades of grey - things that contrast in color might not when converted to B&W. (Related to the tonals Marko mentioned in the podcast? Sorry, I'm kinda tired and not remembering the exact phrasing.) Anyway, I happened to think of something quilters use, what's generally referred to as a value tool (their term, I think, I think for the tonals). This is an example: COLOR EVALUATOR II - Handy Notions - Supplies - Nancy's Notions They run $6 to $8. I've seen mention on boards of using colored report covers for the same purpose. The example tool looks like the colors are fairly dense, so I don't know how good a substitute the covers are. It won't, of course, show you what the blacks, whites and greys are, but it will give a quick (if not perfect) idea of how strongly things would contrast. Then you could do the live view/monochrome setting to see how things look.

[NorthStone]

Thanks Marko for an interesting podcast. B&W photography is something I'm interested in exploring and your thoughts will be very helpful.

BW,
NorthStone