The history of photography began without color. Until not so long ago, most of the photography you saw was black and white. This was due to the limited and costly options for using color photographs in print. As photography had become digital by the time of publication, color photography was as easy and commonplace as black-and-white photography had once been.
Despite modern digital color photography, monochrome photographs from which color has been removed continue to hold great appeal for people interested in photography—just look at the winners of this monochrome competition. Some photographers believe that the emphasis on light and form created by removing color brings the essence of the photograph to the fore and also offers many creative possibilities.
This book discusses processing old and new photographs made on film, whether you still want to use a scanner to digitize them or reproduce the negatives with a digital camera.
There are also many ways to remove the color from an ordinary digital photograph and leave a black-and-white image. This produces truly interesting results only when done with a clear purpose in mind: the final image must be more than simply a photograph without color. Work is needed to compensate for the loss of information caused by removing the color.
If you want maximum control over the final result when editing black-and-white photographs, you really cannot do without Photoshop or another photo-editing program. Most of the book is devoted to carefully processing black-and-white photographs.
A web version of the book is available. Registration provides free access, along with relevant extras.
Eduard de Kam is a photographer and an expert in digital photography and color management. He is affiliated with the Netherlands Institute of Digital Photography in Haarlem (NIDF). Among other things, the NIDF publishes the NIDF standard, which describes how photographers should deliver digital photographs to users according to established rules. This prevents uncertainty about the colors in a photograph, what it depicts, when it was taken, and how copyright and usage rights are arranged. He also provides training and writes for Focus.
Focus op Fotografie: Zwart-witfotografie, 2nd edition - Eduard de Kam
Pages: 200
Price at the time of publication: € 29.99
Publisher: Van Duuren Media
ISBN: 9789463561709. Language: Dutch. This article refers to the Dutch-language edition.
