Getting a nice look with B&W

MarkFoley wrote on 3/25/2004, 10:11 AM

I would like to here what others are using to get a real great looking black & white footage...and I'm talking more than using the B&W filter in Vegas or simply dropping the saturation level in the color corrector.....

Comments

Jay Gladwell wrote on 3/25/2004, 10:30 AM

Lighting plays an important role in "good looking" black & white. An understanding of how colors translate into b&w helps, too. For example, red and green are easily separated in color. However, in black & white red and green are nearly the same shade of gray (depending on the red and green).

J--

RichMacDonald wrote on 3/25/2004, 1:15 PM

Insert a ColorCurves filter upstream of the B&W filter. Then adjust each RGB curve separately. If you've never done it, you'll be amazed. Lots of photoshop tutorials available to explain the principle. Do a google search with "photoshop B&W color curves" or replace "color curves" with "channels". For example

tadpole wrote on 3/26/2004, 3:32 PM

when i first started using vegas - i tried out the BW filter and.. well it just didn't look right.. all washed out..

finally figured out to add Levels filter first (usually start with 'Brighten' then tweak the sliders a bit)

really makes a huge difference.. can get some cool looking overexposed effects too. recommend giving it a go

Flack wrote on 3/26/2004, 4:58 PM

Just done a Christening and the customer turned up with some B&W Photo's and they looked great in Vegas once I had done the tweaks and FX's to them...

I am a big fan of B&W, I have loads of b&w pictures that I have took over the years. I bought quite a few b&W 6*6 cm glass slides from a car boot sale and printed some of them up and they turned out really good, got some of them hung up in the house ...

Flack