Black & White or Color?

[ShaneS]

My husband prefers the color version of this shot by a slight margin but I have been on a black & white kick of late...please take sides and let me know which you prefer and why?

First, the color version:



The black & white version:



If you have any PP or other suggestions on either they would be most welcome. For those that are interested this shot was taken at Lyon Arboretum in Manoa Valley just a few miles away from downtown Honolulu.

This was one of my first shots of 2013 and has stumped me all day in my efforts to pull together some of my favorite/best shots from the year. Hopefully finding and processing the other shots will be a bit faster as at this rate I will be done my 2013 collection by July of next year

[Colin Southern]

Colour for me

[Mike Buckley]

I like the color version better but I think the monochrome version has more potential than the color version. Unfortunately, it has been a very long day (number of hours rather than degree of difficulty) and I can't articulate right now why that's so; it's just a gut reaction that I have.

[flashback]

Shane,

I'm becoming more and more a huge fan of B&W and I've even gone back and played with a lot of my shots to see what works as B&W. In your case I really prefer the color image. I truly get the essence of the location in the color shot. FWIW.

[Colin Southern]

Sometimes colour distracts (as I felt it did with my "in search of Santa" shot), but in this case, the colour is simple and under-stated (it's almost like a duo tone). The grayscale image might look interesting as an ("old-time feel") sepia?

eg with noise added - a little blurring - a little vignetting etc

[Stagecoach]

I'll say the colour version Shane.

And the reason is that I just love the tropical greens and wish I could get them right

Grahame

[IzzieK]

You will hate for saying this Shane but I love both of them. They got a different feel as you look as them separately (not comparing). As I had said before, I wasn't a fan of B/W but I have seen some that are real nice ones that blows my socks off. Remembering too that in the film era, B/W film is more expensive to buy so I tend to stay away from them then.

[jcuknz]

I prefer the color version becuase the B&W is not bold and simple enough and looks muddy, acceptable when sepia toned ... the muted tones of the color are very attractive and the bush stands out giving depth to the photo.

[Black Pearl]

I'm a huge fan of monochrome images but I prefer this in colour.

[Donald]

As another B & W disciple, I think the colour version works better. Why? There is not a wide enough range of tone in the foliage in the scene to give a good spread of tonal values when converted. Tonally, everything is pretty much the same, whereas there is variation of colour in the scene.

[Mike Buckley]

Now that I have gotten a good night's sleep I took another look at your photo and worked with it a bit. I disagree with Donald's thinking that there is not enough tonal variation in the photo to convert well. While that's true in the color version as you presented it, the variation can be increased before converting to black-and-white.

However, doing so changes the mood to a very different photo. If that mood is not what you want (if the mood that you want is the mood of the color photo, which I think is terrific), I think the color version is better for the reason Donald mentions.

[Wavelength]

I like both, yet a bit favoring for B&W;i also liked Collin's treatment

[mknittle]

I am a big fan of black and white but this one looks better in color.

[Sergio M.]

Shane, I prefer the color. The foliage is just to lush and green to pass up.

Sergio

[Downrigger]

Color was my initial reaction - until I saw Colin's treatment, which I think hard to beat with color. A wonderful feature of the image is the lacy delicates against the sky... and the green of them there is so weak that the increased contrast of monochrome seems to take better advantage of them.

[AndrewMcD]

I prefer the color. The depth of the image and the subtle shades of green (my favorite color) transport me into the scene.
Andrew

[ShaneS]

Thank you everyone! You comments confirmed my nagging suspicion and my husband's preference - I hate it when he is right but he was very gracious about it

I felt that the black & white version lacked a bit of depth which was probably better stated by Donald:

There is not a wide enough range of tone in the foliage in the scene to give a good spread of tonal values when converted.

However, I am intrigued by Mike's comment:

While that's true in the color version as you presented it, the (tonal) variation can be increased before converting to black-and-white. However, doing so changes the mood to a very different photo.

I would be interested in seeing what you saw as a 'very different photo' and how you achieved it.

Colin, thank you for taking the time to share you edit. Your treatment would work very well in a series with a vintage Hawaiiana theme.

Grahame, you do a pretty good job on getting the tropical greenery right in your lovely images of the interior of Fiji. It's a tough challenge that we have to maintain the realistic lush colors of the tropics without the images seeming to to be over saturated and 'fake'. I'm guessing that not to many of the members here feel sorry for us on that account though...

[Mike Buckley]

I would be interested in seeing what you saw as a 'very different photo' and how you achieved it.

Before converting to monochrome:
Brightened the bright part of the tree limbs
Brightened the dark part of the palm fronds on the left
Increased the contrast of the mountain on the right side
Increased the tonal range in the sky above the tree

Converted to monochrome using a yellow filter

[ShaneS]

Thank you for taking the time to post this Mike. As you say it is a different picture in many ways and it certainly has more punch than my version. I like the impact of your changes on the branches of the tree quite a bit and overall the image has more depth which I was struggling to obtain.

I still don't think I'm going to sell my hubby on the b&w version though - I may have another play at it though to see what I can do just to please myself

[Stagecoach]

Grahame, you do a pretty good job on getting the tropical greenery right in your lovely images of the interior of Fiji. It's a tough challenge that we have to maintain the realistic lush colors of the tropics without the images seeming to to be over saturated and 'fake'. I'm guessing that not to many of the members here feel sorry for us on that account though...

Shane,

I have recently found that if I apply the Nikon 'Vivid' picture control to the RAW file in ViewNx this gives me a very good starting point for the foliage as to be honest colours are not my strong point. I have also just learnt that to maintain these colours some adjustments are done on luminosity layers.

Final tweaks, if any, are done using individual colours in hue/saturtation.

The greatest assistant to this is of course the lighting and it's why I pray for cloud when I'm going out with the camera

Grahame