Monochrome

I was looking through photos last week choosing images for a black and white
photo competition. I knew I wanted to use the Tattoo Shop stuff. It was shot in color, but I knew I wanted the finished work to be black and white. I began the project with the idea of color, but on the first day I shot Bobby, the owner of the shop, walking through the lobby and knew it had to be black and white. The tiles and all the flash on the walls made such a strong monochrome. My little brain just went WOW!!!!

One of the cool things about digital, you can shoot the originals in color and later make them black and white. I may go back and try them as color sometime.



While I was looking through my pictures I ran across the butterfly photos. I went past them, and something made me open them up and try them as black and white. Really glad I did.



It is easy to make your color digital images black and white. Just convert them from RGB to grayscale. In photoshop, just go to Image, pull down to Mode, and hit Grayscale. Save it as a different file name so you keep the originals unchanged.

Most folks don't make their black and white images contrasty enough. Don't blow out all the highlights, but get some contrast in there.



If you want to make prints of your black and white photos, save them as RGB's. You can use desaturate(Image, pull down to Adjsutments, and then Desaturate) Just be sure to tone the images properly so you have good contrast. Printing them as RGB's will give you truer tones when printed.

So, look back through some of your images, and try making some cool monochromes.