Black And White Digital Photography

Very few times will you see someone taking pictures in black and white with a digital camera as most can use software to create black and white digital photography with a color camera. Most often the image is taken in color and then converted to black and white. This can be done either through the camera and its built-in abilities or the software used to enhance and store pictures on your computer.

Just as there are no traditional cameras designed for color or black and white pictures, it depends on the type of film being used. For black and white digital photography there are no special cameras or memory cards, it hinges on the camera mode the user chooses. Most renderings of black and white digital photography, however are a result of converting the image with software.

Typically, many color images are taken using 8-bit color and are converted to 10-bit black and white. While this technique works well, for better quality black and white digital photography prints, converting the 8-bit images to 16-bit images will allow better grey scale rendering for your black and white prints. Many may not see the big difference between the two, but when viewed on your computer’s software, they become more evident.