Making Great Black and White Photos

Halloween is almost here and you’ll be taking those traditional photos of your ghosts, goblins and fairy princesses. A fun way to capture some Halloween spirit is to turn some of your color pictures into black and white.  It is very easy to do using Studio J, just drag and drop your photo into a layout, click on the Filter drop down and you can change it to Black and White or Sepia. Using these filters is a perfect match with the new Mischief paper. Don’t be scared – give it a try!

Here are 5 Tips for your Black and White Photos to come out looking sharp.

Shape and Form - When looking for a good shot, look beyond the colors in a scene and instead focus you attention on the shapes. Try to create an interesting composition.

Contrast - Without differences in color to separate elements in your shot, you must instead introduce contrasting shades. Use contrast to help your main subject stand out – such as a light subject against a dark background.

Pattern - Black and white photography gives you a much better chance of capturing interesting patterns because it focuses the viewer's attention on the shapes formed by the elements in a scene.

Texture - In the same way that patterns can be lost in color photography, textures can be too. With black and white photos, the mind no longer has that color information to work with, so it pays more attention and focuses on the elements such as texture and pattern.

Lighting - Lighting is absolutely key to a good black and white photograph because it affects all of the above elements - shape, contrast, pattern and texture.

Side lighting often produces the most dramatic black and white photos. It picks out the edges of shapes and increases contrast by adding highlights, and the shadows it creates add interest to the scene as well as enhancing textures and patterns.

Online reference: http://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/5-essential-tips-for-black-and-white-photography