Hi Folks:
Yes, I’m aware I haven’t yet posted part two of my ‘Making Panoramas in the Rainforest‘ post. It’s coming. Truly!
Okay, the idea for this post came from a couple of sources, but most notably from an image I made recently with my phone camera. I have a Galaxy S21 phone, and in pro mode it allows me to shoot in raw/dng format. I can open those images in Capture One as raw files the way I would any other.
Before we continue I want to reiterate a couple of things. Those who have read our previous posts will be familiar with them. The first is a reminder that digital cameras don’t capture images. Digital cameras capture light as information, and we can take that information and arrange it in such a way that it looks like an image – either on screen or in a print. This happens because we arrange that information into a grid of little coloured dots (on paper) or little boxes (pixels) on the screen.The second thing is that while there are a few exceptions, almost all digital cameras capture this information in colour. If you have a Leica, Phase One or other camera with a dedicated grayscale sensor, you have no colour information to work with. You have other advantages in terms of resolution, etc. but no colour. If you scan a black and white film negative to create a digital version you also have no colour information to work with… but for the most part digital images begin in colour and retain that information even with black and white conversion. I’ll mention briefly that the proper term is grayscale, but black and white has been a part of our lexicon for so long I’ll stick with that.
Capture One has a Black and White Tool tab, and there are a couple of ways to use it. Way back when I was using Lightroom (ver. 6.x) there was a checkbox when sharpening your image to convert it temporarily to black and white. Removing colour from the image when sharpening makes it easier as sharpening is a matter of adjusting edge contrast. Capture One doesn’t have this facility, but what one can do is to arrange the various menus in a custom order. To that end I’ve placed the Black and White tab immediately above the Sharpening tab.* In this way I can flip the image into black and white, complete the sharpening steps and then uncheck the Black and White box to return colour to the image.
Why make black and white images? That’s a blog post in itself. Some prefer them for a historic look. While some images are about colour, there are others where colour in and of itself adds nothing to the image. Without colour what you have are compositional elements as well as form, structure, texture, shading… essentially the bones of the image. If you’re struggling to decide whether or not an image is worth keeping, flipping it temporarily into black and white reveals these bones and can often help to make the decision easier.
As mentioned at the top, the idea for this post came originally from an image I’d made with my phone. This one (click on any image to see it larger):
Whether or not such images appeal to you depends on how much you like driftwood, but I thought it had some potential.
After cropping it to 16×9 and converting it to black and white, we end up here. I added a second Black and White Tool tab to the corner of the image to make what happens next more obvious. One might consider this a flat conversion. Note that while the image appears to be black and white, all of the original colour information is preserved and still available for use.
When the first black and white television sets debuted in the 1940s, those involved had a problem. They had to take a colour scene and convert it into a normal-looking black and white version. To do this they had to amplify/modify the various colours in the scene to make them appear more balanced.
NB: I regret I have been unable to find the original URL I discovered for the following, but they have my appreciations. If anyone knows of the source, please leave a comment.
Using roughly the same model, it’s possible to create what was considered at the time an accurate black and white conversion as a preset for Capture One. Here’s a more colour-balanced version of the image. I have created a B&W Conversion preset with these values.
The differences are mostly subtle, but important. This is what I consider the beginning place for my black and white images. Now, since we have all of the colour channel information available, we can use the sliders in the Black and White tab to make certain areas of the image brighter or darker (luminance) based on their (hidden) colours. For this image, I set the sliders to this point:
I’ve found that the best way to do this is simply to move each slider back and forth, observing the changes in the image as I go. There are some images where moving a particular slider from one side to the other has no effect as there is effectively no element of that colour in that image. I leave those sliders (Cyan, in this case) set to 0.
There are a few things to note here. One is that the White Balance (Colour Temperature and Tint) sliders also affect colour and one can play with them to see what effects they have in terms of changing the luminance and contrast of the image. The Colour Editor controls (Basic or Advanced) can be used in the same way. In particular, the Advanced Colour Editor can be used to target very specific colours of the image. It’s also important to remember that Capture One’s Layers tool can be used to mask only certain parts of the frame and one can apply colour (luminance) adjustments to only certain parts of the image. The Colour Balance tab wheels cannot be used in a similar way, but they can be used to tone or split-tone the image depending on whether one uses the Master or the various (Shadow, Midtone, Highlight) wheels.
Finally, the Curves Tool. There are those who are quite fond of curves and those who are not. I do use them, but I prefer the other Tool tab options within Capture One. Here again, however, one can use the Luma Curve to lighten/darken and or change contrast within the image. Even though this image is showing in black and white, since the colour information is still available, the red, green and blue curves can be used in a similar way to the Black and White tab sliders. If you have a film scan of a black and white film negative open in Capture One, you can do a quick inversion using the Luma Curve. Simply move the bottom left point to the top left, and the top right point to the bottom right to invert the curve. Save yourself some time and create a preset for this.
The final adjustments in this image involved four layers and various masks. Here’s where I finished with it in Capture One:
I have an old (free) version of Silver Efex Pro – from after Google’s purchase from Nik Software and before Google sold it to DxO. I admit I don’t use it much but I do like some of the frame effects it offers. If you have Photoshop or Affinity Photo or equivalent you can create your own frames, but for some things Silver Efex Pro does a good job. Here’s the final image, with frame:
Okay, that’s it for now. Go out and make some photographs!
Hugs,
M&M
* When you modify the default Capture One Pro Workspace (by adding or moving tool tabs for example), remember to save your custom workspace(s). Sometimes when upgrading to a new version of the software, Capture One will revert to the default workspace. If you haven’t saved your modifications, you’ll have to start over.