When will the photos be processed into black-and-white photos more appropriate?

There are several ways to handle Black-and-white photos:

Features of the camera itself

The color mode in PS is grayscale

Later use "Go Color" or "black and white" and other functions [1]

Processing into black and white is characterized by: weakening the contrast between colors, more simple to show lightness and brightness. In addition, in PS, lightness and brightness are two different concepts. [2]

Give me a chestnut:

This is the two colors in RGB mode. The contrast is obvious, isn't it?

But in grayscale, the difference is not obvious. This will be a lot of color contrast to weaken.

So, simply put, the benefits of dealing with Black-and-white photos are:

When the color in the photo is so much that it looks dirty and messy, black and white can weaken the contrast of many colors. It's like we said earlier.

2. When the main body of the photo because the color reason is not too obvious, but its own brightness contrast is very obvious, in order to highlight the subject can be black and white photos.

For example, this photo model's nails are very eye-catching, but in fact our focus is not here. Then the Black-and-white is much better: people will focus on the face of the model (especially the eyes).

3. Black-and-White photographs can create a nostalgic, memorable or objective atmosphere. This technique is common in retro art and news photography.

Black and white photos are good, but still have their shortcomings. One more chestnut:

When this picture is processed into black-and-white photos,

Our eyes are focused mainly on the clothes of the model. And the whole picture appears to be short of contrast, gray feeling.

There's another chestnut:

In plant photography, the color of plants is very important and is often used in the presentation of themes such as thriving hurrying feet.

But if you deal with a black photo,

Because plants often show high saturation of the green/red will be in the black and white conditions appear very depressing dark gray. [3]

So the problem with Black-and-white photos is:

Lose the emotion and emotion that the color can convey

In many cases the photo is not suitable for conversion to black and white: hue contrast strong and brightness or contrast is not strong

The positive photo of many characters processed into Black-and-white is not respectable [4]

[1] The difference between gray and black color:

Grayscale is a color mode in which all color values are converted to grayscale values. That is, even in the color palette, fill in the layer or grayscale color.

Black and white color is only a processing method, in the later can still add color. Go color is a simple one-click Operation-All colors are converted to grayscale colors. Black and white can adjust the color of the various colors in the black and white after processing. In fact, there is little scope for adjustment.

[2] lightness is a B in HSB, which refers to the degree of intensity of color. and brightness refers to the bright degree of light color.

In traditional art teaching, these two concepts are often confused, which is actually two completely different concepts.

Lightness is only one of the variables that describes a color, which is local. We can say that hsb= (100,20,100) is higher than hsb= (30,47,80), but in fact there is no reference value. Unless the h,s two values are the same premise comparison.

And brightness is the whole, it can determine the color of light in people's eyes to the extent of the glare, more practical reference value. In the color system comparison can represent brightness, is the L in lab. The value of L is related to the H, S, and b three values.

Raising chestnuts says height is a factor in people's stature and is tied to weight and muscle. And symmetry is a reference to the whole. We cannot say that A is better than B in stature. And symmetry is a whole reference, can determine the shape of the good and bad, and its value and height, weight and muscle are related. The former is lightness, the latter is brightness.

Category:

• PS Image Processing