Printing Black and White Photographs

The latest inkjet printers and ink sets give digital photographers unprecedented capabilities for black and white (B&W) printing and it is now possible to produce ‘fine art’ prints with better quality than was formerly achieved through chemical means. But, as with traditional photography, good results can only be obtained with effort and understanding. You need the right shot, effective editing, the right printer and the right media for printing your photograph.

Think B&W; Shoot Colour

Regardless of the output type, the more image data you have to start with, the more you can use for printing. This means shooting with the highest available resolution and quality, using raw format where it’s available and shooting in colour, even though you want to end up with a B&W print. However, when composing shots you should use the same strategies as you used when shooting with B&W film: think in black and white and pre-visualise the subject as a series of tones.

Why shoot in colour?

The monochrome shooting modes (B&W and/or sepia) in most cameras discard the colour information when the file is saved. Not only does this reduce the amount of image data you have to work with, it also prevents you from accessing separate colour channels in image files. This prevents you from using the Channel Mixer strategy outlined below, which produces much more dynamic prints than a simple greyscale conversion. Some DSLRs save extractable colour channel data in RAW images when shots are taken in B&W mode – but not in JPEGs. Monochrome modes are best avoided unless you need a ‘quick and dirty’ conversion for an application where quality doesn’t count.

If you’re not sure where to position your exposure, underexpose – especially if you’re shooting JPEGs. Set the exposure compensation at -0.3 stops as a starting point but be prepared to go past one stop if conditions demand. This will reduce the risk of clipping highlights and should allow you to ‘pull in’ highlight detail without losing information in the midtones and shadow areas.

B&W Conversion

There are many ways to convert colour images to B&W. Photographers with raw files should start by selecting a low-contrast conversion setting (if available) to ensure the maximum tonal range is maintained. This will provide more flexibility for subsequent editing and printing. It may also be useful to adjust exposure compensation to bring up highlight detail at this stage as well.

Convert raw files to ensure as much highlight and shadow detail as you can and save them as 16-bit TIFF files before proceeding to B&W conversions.

Note the difference in depth between a straight greyscale conversion (middle) and a B&W conversion made with a more sophisticated method (above).

We recommend working with 16-bit TIFF images if your editing software supports this format (most of the more powerful editors will) because they contain the maximum amount of image data you can extract from a raw file. Otherwise use the highest JPEG quality setting and be careful with the adjustments you make. (JPEG files are, by default, 8-bit files.) Aim to recover as much highlight and shadow detail as you can before proceeding to B&W conversion.

The easiest B&W conversion strategy is to select Image>Mode>Grayscale from the menu bar in Photoshop (or the equivalent in the application you’re using). This will discard all colour information but tends to produce rather flat images that require subsequent adjustment.

If you’re using Photoshop Elements, using the Layer menu and Hue/Saturation adjustment gives you more control. Select Layers>New Adjustment Layer> Hue/Saturation. This layer is automatically named Layer #1. When the dialog box opens, make sure the Preview box is checked and click OK. Repeat the process to create a second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, named Layer#2.

Double-click on the Layer #1 dialog box icon in the Layers panel and move the saturation slider back to -100 to remove all colour from the image.

Then double-click on the Layer #2 dialog box icon, click on the Edit dropdown menu and select one of the colour channels, adjusting the Hue, Saturation and Lightness sliders. Moving the hue slider to -160 replicates the effect of a light red filter, darkening the blue tones of the sky. Shifting it to +20 replicates the effect of a blue filter.

When you’re satisfied with the result, click OK and select Layer>Flatten Image to save the picture as a B&W image.

In Photoshop, the Channel Mixer method will provide more flexibility and better end results. In the Channels palette, select the composite (RGB) colour channel and then click on Choose Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer. Click OK in the New Layer dialog box.

Check the Monochrome box to set Gray as the output channel. This creates a colour image that contains only grey values. Use the Source Channels sliders to control the amount of detail and contrast in the images you plan to convert to greyscale.

To see the effect the sliders have on the monochrome image before adjusting the percentages of the source channels, view how each source channel affects, view the image with the Red channel set to +100% and the Green and Blue source channels set to 0%. Then, view the image with the Green source channel set to +100% and the other two channels set to 0%. Finally, view the image with Blue source channel set to +100% and the other channels set to 0%. (Note: when adjusting the percentages of the source channels, you often get the best results when the combined values of the source channels add up to 100%.)

The Constant slider adjusts the greyscale value of the output channel. Negative values add more black, and positive values add more white. A -200% value makes the output channel completely black, while a +200% value makes the output channel completely white.

Another popular Photoshop method is the Lab Colour method. Select Image>Mode>Lab Color then click on the Channels palette and select the Lightness channel. This displays a monochrome version of the image.

Convert the image to greyscale by selecting Image>Mode>Grayscale. Control-click the thumbnail in the new ‘Gray’ channel to make the new channel the selection. Invert the selection (Select>Inverse) and leave this selection active for the next few steps. Fill the selection with black by clicking on Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Colour and selecting black (colour No. 000000). This darkens the selected area. Adjust the opacity of this fill layer by moving the Opacity slider in the layers palette.

Create a new adjustment layer by selecting Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels (or Curves if you prefer) and fine-tune the image tonality with the standard Levels or Curves adjustments.

Printers for B&W Printing

Some inkjet printers are easier to use for B&W printing than others. For example, printers that use three dedicated black inks (often designated ‘black’ ‘light black’ and ‘light light black’) can span the entire monochrome tonal range. Until these new printers arrived, photographers who made B&W prints with six-ink printers often found they were unable to remove a colour cast (which could be green, red or blue) from their pictures.

The diagram below shows why this cast occurs. The top bands show how the yellow, magenta, cyan and black inks are used to print different densities in the image, ranging from deep blacks on the left to the lightest tones on the right. Note how the lightest tones rely entirely on the coloured inks for creating the pale greys in the image.

Changing to a seven-ink printer improves this situation by adding a light black ink to take the place of the black ink in the mid grey tones. However, the lightest greys are still reliant on the coloured inks.

In the latest printers that use eight inks, an additional light, light black ink is added to cover all tones of grey from slightly below mid grey to almost white. Note how this reduces the reliance on the coloured inks (which are still used to add depth and intensity to the tones). This ink set effectively eliminates colour casts due to the ink set, allowing photographers to produce B&W prints with true colour neutrality.

Specially-designed printer drivers are required for fine-tuning the image and printers with several ‘light black’ (or grey) inks make it easier to obtain top-quality monochrome prints. They also allow photographers to introduce Colour Toning effects.

The Advanced B&W driver that works with all Epson printers that use the new UltraChrome K3 ink set gives users four Colour Toning options: neutral, cool, warm and sepia and allows them to adjust the tone across five levels from light (the hardest) to darkest (the softest). Slide bars provide further adjustments for brightness, contrast, shadow and highlight tonality and optical density (sharp or soft focus) and users can check the Highlight Point Shift box to add a little more ink to white areas to give it a glossy look. But the most subtle adjustment can be made by moving the red cross about in the colour circle. In all cases, the adjustments will be reflected in the sample print shown in the top right corner of the driver GUI.

The illustration shows how changing the settings in the Epson Advanced B&W driver subtly changes the colour toning of the resulting B&W print.

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