Black and Whites

Before photographers started offering digital images all images from a professional session were puchased as prints.  Clients were charged for each individual print, even if they wanted the exact same print in black and white and in color.  When everything went digital, even the most novice of clients owned some sort of photo editing software.

Just a reminder that it is in fact a copyright infringement to make any sort of changes on the photos, however many clients don't realize that this includes turning a color photo into black and white. Let's be honest, in most cases I probably won't find out about any changes that you make to your images.  However I thought I would take a moment to point out the diffence between just turning your image into black and white via grayscale (as most photo editing programs do) and professional black and white images.

There is a reason that I charge for both color and black and white copies of the same picture.  Althought it is the same image, I process them completely differently.  Color portraits focus on skin tone, white balance, vibrancy, and saturation.  Black and whites focus on depth and texture.  Just using a grayscale version leads to a very flat image.  Here is an example (if you click on the pictures to make them bigger you can see more of a difference):

Here is the color version -

Here is the grayscale version - pretty flat and borning.  Her eyes don't stand out and the whole picture lacks any dimension.

Here is my professional edit in black and white.  Notice how much more dimension it has?  You can see a seperation from her and the background showing a more depth.