# Why does a Black & White photo seem more artsy/professional than a colour one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 19, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123 "2004-10-19T22:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/21 "2004-10-20T12:35:43Z")
> [@Antonius Block](#): > > Although most digital cameras can only operate in a color mode, the resulting images can be loaded into pretty much any image-manipulation program (such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) and converted to greyscale (i.e. B&W). > > The disadvantage of greyscale for digital images is the small range of available intensity information (quite the reverse of the case with film!). The standard greyscale formats have 8 bits of grey information per pixel, leading to only 256 intensity levels. Even graphics cards with 10-bit D-A converters only allow up to 1024 greyscale levels, compared to 16 million colors for a 24-bit color format. I think that’s why it’s better in Photoshop to desaturate rather than convert to greyscale.You shouldn’t go edit-\>mode-\>greyscale, but rather go edit-\>adjust-\>desaturate. I’m pretty sure it’s the same in PSPro. Most digital cameras have a B&W mode nowadays, I think (unless you have a pretty old one, **Blonde** ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/22 "2004-10-20T12:54:04Z")
When you look at all the information available in a colour photo, it can confuse you a bit. You can see that one part is yellow, and one part is pink, but you don’t necessarily see that they are tonally exactly the same. When you strip out the colour and see only the blacks, whites, and greys, you are forced to see that what makes up the image is tonal differences only. That makes it all tehmore striking to the eye, it simplifies, and also draws attention to features of the image that colour can obscure. ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/23 "2004-10-20T14:39:58Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > To add to my comments: > > I would disagree that B&W photos are a matter of practicality. In today’s day and age, B&W is pretty impractical. I find chromogenic black-and-white films (which are processed in color chemistry) to be quite excellent. Shooting Ilford XP2 and printing it onto black-and-white paper yields incredible results. Much better grain structure and tonal range than pure black-and-white films at 400 ISO. > > Plus, the idea that transparency film (aka slides) have a wider tonal/dynamic range than neg film is incorrect. Slide film is notorious for having a very limited contrast range as compared with negative film. Neg film will always capture much more tonal information than slide. That said, I still think slide film looks better, as it tends to be more “punchy” (a combination of color saturation and contrast) than negative film. They say that a digital camera’s CCD and slide film, both have wider tonal range range than color negative film. They both can get easily “burned” by bright light (I have my camera permamently stopped down 2/3EV), but they can render dark tones better. Color negative film is quite the opposite. It can tolerate bright light, but has a problem with black tones. I am a digital amateur photographer myself. I’ve never shot film, let alone develop and print it. Those are things I’ve heared from professional photographers. Maybe I’ve got the terminology wrong. :o ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/24 "2004-10-20T15:25:21Z")
> [@Dog80](#): > > They say that a digital camera’s CCD and slide film, both have wider tonal range range than color negative film. They both can get easily “burned” by bright light (I have my camera permamently stopped down 2/3EV), but they can render dark tones better. Color negative film is quite the opposite. It can tolerate bright light, but has a problem with black tones. > > I am a digital amateur photographer myself. I’ve never shot film, let alone develop and print it. Those are things I’ve heared from professional photographers. Maybe I’ve got the terminology wrong. :o If you’re interested, [there’s a topic that addresses the neg/chrome issue](http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/499536.html) here. Like I said, I prefer the look of slides, but negs give me more latitude and are far easier to work with in high-contrast situations. I would probably agree that the tones in dark areas of a chrome are more distinct and nicer than in a neg, but overall, a neg captures much more visual information (especially, as you said, in the highlights.) ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/25 "2004-10-20T15:29:09Z")
It is interesting to compare the preference for monochrome in “serious” photography to the use of color in other graphic media. I don’t think charcoal drawings are considered to be more “artsy/professional” than ones done in pastels. But what about comic books? Are color comics just for the superheroes in tights? I guess I was a little surprised to find that Art Spiegelman’s latest work was in color. Cinema seems to have shaken off any bias against color in “serious” films. There are still some interesting and beautiful B&W movies being made (Roger Deakins got a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his black-and-white cinematography on _The Man Who Wasn’t There_, for example), but nowadays I don’t think anybody believe that B&W is necessary for a film to be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/26 "2004-10-20T15:49:54Z")
> [@chukhung](#): > > It is interesting to compare the preference for monochrome in “serious” photography to the use of color in other graphic media. No kidding. Look at National Geographic. I hope that would qualify for “serious” photography. When was the last time you saw a black-and-white photograph in that publication? NatGeo is the premiere publication for what can be achieved with color photography and the perfect example of where color trumps black-and-white. Most of the photos in NatGeo would lose most of their drama and impact if they were rendered in grayscale. Secondly, there are plenty of fine art photographers that work in color. Cindy Sherman is a pretty universally revered “high art” photographer. Most of her work (after the _Untitled Film Stills_ series) is in color. Robert Mapplethorpe was more known for his black-and-whites, but he used color in some of his flower work. What about Annie Liebovitz? Or is her art too commercial to be “serious”? 95% of all newspaper and magazine photography is color. Tell me of those millions of pictures there’s no art to be found. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/27 "2004-10-20T17:18:29Z")
> [@Spartydog](#): > > Oftentimes, great pictures are not created when photographed, they are created in the darkroom. B&W offers some subtle, creative artistic advantages that don’t seem to translate well to color. > > Study Ansel Adams. Anyone can take photographs in Big Sur, only Ansel Adams could turn them into a standard of artful photography. True, but he did that with color, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123/28 "2004-10-20T22:52:17Z")
> [@Blonde](#): > > All the best pictures are B&W…now if I could just figure out how to take them with my digital camera… 😕 I suggest you shoot in B&W then get a decent editing program like paintshhop pro. Working with color originals gives you more information to work with and allows some techniques simialar to using color filters in B&W to selectively change contrast. > [@Dog80](#): > > They say that a digital camera’s CCD and slide film, both have wider tonal range range than color negative film. I think you may have it backwards. B&W film has the widest ranged followed by color negs then chromes. Digital typically has a narrower dynamic range than negs, closer to slide film. It’s not too bad with large CCDs when shooting raw images but much worse in consumer cameras with small sensors shooting straight to JPG. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-black-white-photo-seem-more-artsy-professional-than-a-colour-one/270123.md?page=1)