RAW, B&W, Color...what the heck happened?

[JCollins62]

Hi, New shooter here. So I have this Nikon D80 and I have recently revived my passion for photography. I just went to New Hope, PA and shot about 100 black and white photos. Hearing that RAW was the best format to shoot in I set my camera as such. I get home and anxiously import my day's shooting and low and behold they've all imported as color photos. I didn't want color. So...do I have to go to Photoshop and convert every photo back into B&W?

Thanks in advance,
Joe

 

[SHaller]

I'm somewhat sure that all cameras have a B&W setting, but your results will be a lot better if you convert them in post.

 

[480sparky]

If you 'shoot raw', you must post-process the images anyway, B&W or not.

 

[MLeeK]

Raw is every bit of data that hits your sensor with no editing applied-hence no black and white. If you want to have your camera edit for you, you have to shoot in jpeg.
You are better off converting to black and white in post from the raw images once you know how to process raw. True black and white conversions are tough and are best done using the color sliders to get the look you are wanting.

 

[JCollins62]

Thanks for the fast replies!

 

[KmH]

Actually, quite a bit of editing is done to make a Raw image data file something that looks like what we humans call a photograph, because the camera doesn't 'see' the way humans see.

The B&W (or Monotone) option your camera offers can only produce a JPEG, not a Raw file.

Actually the image sensor in the camera is color blind and can only record a grayscale image. The image sensor's sole purpose is to detect how many particles of light - photons - strike each pixel during an exposure. In other words the image sensor only records luminosity.

Back to the edits done to a Raw file:

• 1st edit - The analog voltage developed by each pixel based on how many photons hit it gets amplified, and then converted to a 12-bit or 14-bit digital number. A higher voltage means more photons hit the pixel (more luminous). Once the amplified analog voltage each pixel produced is converted to a digital number, the information the image sensor actually recorded no longer exists.
• 2nd edit - Most DSLR cameras have a RGB Bayer Array in front of the image sensor. The arrangement of the Bayer Array is used in a computer algorithm to interpolate what color likely hit each pixel. The process is known as demosaicing or colorimetric interpolation.
• 3rd edit - Tone mapping. The Raw file has a linear gamma (1.0). Humans see using a non-linear gamma (about 1.8), So a non-liner gamma has to be applied to the file to give it the range of tonality humans can see.
• 4th, 5th, 6th edits - Noise reduction, antialiasing, and sharpening. Every Raw converter performs these edits, but each Raw converters uses different algorithms to do the edits so when the the photo finally appears, it looks somewhat different in each Raw converter.

All those edits happen before the photographer ever gets a chance to do any editing.

 

[joshhuntnm]

any photo editing software can convert to Black and white.