B&W From Raw ?

[Pirate]

I have recently begun to enjoy CS3's bridge and working with raw. I have done some b&w pp of some landscapes that I think turn out rather nicely but am having some trouble with highlighting some dark and light colored areas. For example I did alot of shots of Yosemite this spring and have done a few mountain shots in b&w, but am having trouble getting the whites that I want out of the waterfalls, without making everything in the photo too light. I am fairly new at photoshop but really enjoy shooting in raw. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Do you shoot in raw ? What % that you shoot are in raw format ? Thanks for your help.

 

[Big Mike]

I shoot 98% in RAW. Once I started using good RAW software and figured out a workflow, I found processing the RAW images much easier.

When I convert an image to B&W, I process it in color and get it into Photoshop. Once there, there are several methods for converting to B&W, most of them are much better than just turning the saturation down to zero.

 

[Pirate]

I normally do the conversion in Bridge as I feel that the desat loses so much sharpness. Is dodging and burning any help here ?

 

[Big Mike]

Dodging and burning can usually help but it depends on what you want to do and what you have to work with.

For my B&W conversion, I have an action that works great. Plus I'll tweak the levels and use curves, to really give it some snappy contrast.

 

[JerryPH]

RAW and B&W. I used to desaturate and play, but the best way I found for best results... was using Levels (and curves, like Mike does). There is a lot less loss of detail. I am a 100% RAW shooter with CS3, if that helps, and that's how I do it.

 

[tsaraleksi]

I like to use one of two methods in the conversion. One is to use my custom LR preset for converting low-contrast images to black and white, and the other is to just use the converter's desaturate in concert with my preset for high contrast tone curves. One big thing is to remember dodging and burning to draw attention to what you want and deemphasize other things.