BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Questions

Which 35 mm colour film is most suitable for B/W p

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September 12, 2001

There is a special paper that a darkroom guy can use to give you B&W, but the work won't be cheap.

If you've ever wanted to venture into digital, this is a great place to begin. The HP S-20 film scanner is just $400 these days. If you don't want to attempt it yourself, have these negs scanned into Photoshop at least 2400 ppi, and convert to B&W, using the guidelines I gave earlier this month. The same people who do your scanning should be able to print them out on a photo quality printer. This won't be cheap, either. But he's your friend.

Really want to snow some people? You, or your operator, can desaturate the color in Photoshop, and then go in and selectively erase back to color to give you a colorized B&W effect. Bring out just the flowers, or the blush in the bride's cheeks . . .

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September 13, 2001

If you do end up using photoshop, there is actually a quicker way you can do the really cool partial colour thing that Doug mentioned. By the way, Doug, it's a great idea and great creative tool.

What you do is you clone the photo into another level. You then desaturate one into black and white, and you crop crop the colour photo so that only the colour bits are left. You might want to desaturate them slightly, since they will be a very strong contrast to the rest of your photo.

Once you have done that you can merge the two photos back together, or you can paste the colour back onto the black and white and feather the edges to make it look more natural.

Good luck! Don't forget to upload the photos to show us!

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September 13, 2001