Color or B/W

[goldfin]

I've never been much of a black and white fan, but yesterday, I was trying to print the photo below, and my printer ran out of color ink, so I went back and re-edited the photo for B/W and discovered that I really liked some of the effects I was able to create, for example, bumping up the contrast to really bring out the lines in the leaf and enhance a diamond-like sparkle on the dew drop. I really like the yellow and green color in the dew drop in the first photo, but I actually think I like this better in B/W. Just wondered what other people think, and if some of you have done much experimenting with B/W. If so, what conditions do you think lend themselves best to B/W over color?

 

[tektite]

Its really a call of personal preference.

Overall though - if the interest or focus of the image depends on colors contrasting each other, the picture is much better in color. If the interest or focus of the image is more based on absolute contrast/light vs. dark than variations in color, the B+W is a good option.

For example (keeping with your leaf):

This pic is just green, turning B+W is a cool effect:





This pic though, the color really adds to the image:


Straight B+W is still OK, given the dark bands between the red and green, but it loses something:


As a caveat though, given that image, using a tool such as channel mixer in photoshop easily allows the B+W to be more selectively edited. This allows you to control the brightness/contrast of each color individually while converting to B+W, still makes an awesome pic even without color:

 

[Misled]

You have other options.

 

[Bman562]

^That's awesome

 

[JaYbIrD1969]

In many instances, converting to B&W creates a cold feel. Whereas color equals warmth. Your image has a warm summer dew feeling in color and a cold wet winter feel in B&W. A photographer thats truly an artist captures "moods" in their images.

I always save my original image along with B&W just in case I change my mind

 

[goldfin]

Really helpful responses from all. Thanks much.

 

[IslandCrow]

I think that particular photo works very well in black and white. It's basically monochrome already, so the black and white conversion brings out the tonal contrasts, which are really what makes that particular photograph interesting. When it's tones vs. colors which really draw the viewers attention in, that's when I'll usually go with monochrome vs. color. The selective color thing can be interesting, but it does tend to get overdone and is often times just a heavy handed method of drawing the viewers attention to a particular area of the photograph. It can certainly work well in some circumstances, though. Yet another option is to go more subtle and just desaturate the color in the photo, except where you want to pull the viewers attention. That way, it's not as noticable, but has the same effect. You can do the same with slightly brightening the area you want to draw attention. Those techniques should still be used in conjunction with effective composition of course.