Question about B&W processing in SEP 2

[Mike Buckley]

One thing that I find with a number of authors is that they change their minds over time.

I certainly hope we would allow them that. I'm confident that you do and I'm certain that I do.

[bnnrcn]

Larry , in my first post I mentioned the things which can't be done in SEP2. May be I should have added 'etc' to that sentence.( I am going to edit it now) The colors Mike and Manfred are talking about is the hue adjustments , not the WB adjustments. I agree with you that if there is anything which can't be done in SEP2 ,it has to be done in ACR,LR or in some other software beforehand.

BTW, my SEP2 book says that, sometimes leaving a color cast (without fixing the WB) in night shots helps to improve the B&W conversion, because the color cast creates a different effect in the B&W conversion. May be it is worth trying I don't know

As I said Mike in my post above, I think the matter is highly related to personal preference. One has to choose the way in which she/he feels most comfortable. This thread has been very helpful for me to understand that there is no certain answer to my question and I'm clear about the matter now. Thank you for your contribution to the thread and for sharing your ideas. I appreciate it

The colors that you effect with the color sensitivity sliders in Silver Efex are from a range of colors you are importing from another place, whether your camera directly or ACR with full processing or ACR immediate, default transmission. If, for example, your white balance is set to 4000 instead of 7000 in your conversion, you will have a different set of colors to work with in Silver Efex. At least this is my understanding. You can fiddle with the red slider all day, but you it will not have the same result with the 4000 K file as the 7000 K file. So, that is why I like to develop the colors completely the way I want before moving to Silver Efex. One can purposely process an image in a 'distorted' way to get the color range one wants. I may be wrong about this but I do believe one has the greatest set of possibilities in the raw state and every choice from there creates further limitations. Since Silver Efex is not a raw processor, one has to feed it.

[Brev00]

What I am saying is that I think the white balance adjustments are primary and the hue adjustments secondary. The first effects the second but not the other way around. So, yes, I believe that any sort of color cast will create a different effect in the conversion whether for good or for bad. Maybe it is time to post an example or two to see what you are doing. Hypotheticals only get one so far.

[Manfred M]

What I am saying is that I think the white balance adjustments are primary and the hue adjustments secondary. The first effects the second but not the other way around. So, yes, I believe that any sort of color cast will create a different effect in the conversion whether for good or for bad. Maybe it is time to post an example or two to see what you are doing. Hypotheticals only get one so far.

White balance adjustment in B&W??? That's something that never existed in the B&W film days as these were shot in all kinds of lighting conditions without this ever becoming an issue. Colour films were either daylight balanced or tungsten balanced. Neutral gray is neutral gray and any colour cast (which we can't detect anyways) would only impact the tonality of the image.

By extension, the same thing happens in a B&W conversion, especially when you apply a tool like Silver Efex. Depending on the chosen look, the filter runs rampant over a particular tonal range, so again, any changes here would hide any colour cast / white balance issues in the original colour image.

[Mike Buckley]

If you have two color photos that are exactly the same except the white balance is different and if you then convert them to black-and-white using the exact same method of conversion, the two black-and-white photos will have different characteristics (they will look different) at that point in the workflow. That's the point I understood from the details of Larry's first post and the follow-up of his second post. I agree with his thinking.

However, let's assume the white balance in a color photo is "wrong." Let's also assume that when the photo is converted to monochrome that the white balance causes an undesirable look. That's not to say that the look can't be corrected while working with the monochrome version; it's not necessary to revert to the color version and correct it because the required changes could be made working only with the monochrome version.

[Manfred M]

If you have two color photos that are exactly the same except the white balance is different and if you then convert them to black-and-white using the exact same method of conversion, the two black-and-white photos will have different characteristics (they will look different) at that point in the workflow. That's the point I understood from the details of Larry's first post and the follow-up of his second post. I agree with his thinking.

However, let's assume the white balance in a color photo is "wrong." Let's also assume that when the photo is converted to monochrome that the white balance causes an undesirable look. That's not to say that the look can't be corrected while working with the monochrome version; it's not necessary to revert to the color version and correct it because the required changes could be made working only with the monochrome version.

Mike I agree, what both of you are saying is both completely correct on one hand, but also completely irrelevant.

The fact that these adjustments provide different results is quite clear, but is one "more correct" that another? Of course not because there is no correct "formula" to define how a correctly map a colour image over to a monochrome one. In a monochrome image we are really restricted to playing with various shades of gray (tonality) and contrast. We have to manually adjust various parameters to produce the image that we want.

Getting back to colour theory a bit; after a lifetime of viewing images, our brains tells us what looks right and what does not.

1. We expect blacks to be black, whites to be white and neutrals to be neutral. Throw a (significant) colour cast on any of these and our brains will tell us there is something wrong with the image.

2. Skin tones have to look right it there are people in the shot. Show a shot with the person's face looking green or blue, we won't buy it. Throw in a warm tone like red or yellow, so long as it is within reason, we might even like it better than a true neutral tone.

3. A "universally" recognizable item has the wrong colours - this can be anything from the red being wrong on a can of Coca-Cola to a national flag having the incorrect colours.

The nice thing about B&W, these issues pretty well disappear.


So, let's look at some examples, starting with this image:



Let me add an absurd colour cast or two...


Cold out, they're blue?




Let's warm things up with a touch of magenta...




Now let's do four B&W conversions (the first three are at Photoshop's B&W conversion default values)


Here's the original:





Here's the one with the heavy blue cast.




And here is the one with the magenta cast:




And finally, here's one where I manually (over) manipulated the individual colour channels. Notice how this increases overall contrast as I was quite heavy handed with individual colour channels. Tonality / contrast is what monochrome is all about.




So which one is the "correct" conversion? What is better or worse amongst the group of conversions? I'm willing to bet that if each of these were on a different page, people would have some difficulties identifying the differences and they probably would not be able to judge which ones were colour corrected and which ones had the colour cast.

This is why I

[Mike Buckley]

I would be willing to take your bet that people would be able to distinguish between #1, #4, and either #2 or #3 when viewing them on separate pages. They might not notice the difference between #2 and #3. But, we can easily see those differences when displayed on the same page, so for me it's irrelevant that we might not detect them when viewed on different pages. I could get into a discussion about that but, indeed, it would be for a different discussion, not this one.

As to judging which images were color-corrected and which ones had the color cast, I agree that nobody would be able to know which ones they would be. However, that's irrelevant because it's not helpful outside an educational environment to know what causes any differences in photographs. If the differences can be seen as I contend is the case in your examples, that's the only thing that matters.

[Brev00]

I am not sure if you are referring to my earlier post, but I never said one white balance setting was better or correct, just different and would give different results. So, you are demonstrating my point, I think. I am not as certain as Mike that I can compensate for a white balance setting so easily in Silver Efex. I might prefer to go back to the raw if, for example, the lack of blue in the sky due to a too warm white balance is messing up the result I am after in my black and white image. Why not just get the data I want? i am not saying I always or even often do this. Not at all. Silver Efex does a fine job with my conversions without any redos the vast majority of the times.

[Mike Buckley]

I am not sure if you [Manfred] are referring to my earlier post, but I never said one white balance setting was better or correct, just different and would give different results. So, you are demonstrating my point, I think.

The same is true for me. I apologize that I forgot to thank Manfred for demonstrating my point (our point).