Following Camille’s article on B&W photography, I wanted to share with you some thoughts.
Digital B&W cameras have a louzy algorithm to shot in B&W, so it’s always better to shot in colour and then apply the method described there, or manual methods which involve colour desaturation, channel mixing, etc. to get a decent B&W picture.
However, after doing some tests, I’ve found out that, if possible, it’s best to shoot RAW in order to convert to B&W afterwards. Here’s why: JPEG compression artifacts are more visible in B&W photos. Yes, JPEG compression artifacts show up very clearly in B&W photos in the form of a discrete degradé (that is, a degradé that is not continuous, it jumps from one tone to the other in big steps), mostly in areas of light colour.
Shooting RAW and converting to a non-lossy format (like PPM, TIFF…), compressed or not, and then performing B&W conversion, is the best way to achieve higher quality B&W pictures.
If you don’t have the possibility to shoot RAW (for example, you own a point&shoot digicam), try to take your shots with the minimum level of compression, meaning maximum image quality and also maximum file size, in order to reduce compression artifacts.
I still have to test B&W picture printing in photographic paper at a lab (the ideal test would be to compare the same, or at least similar, B&W shots from film and digital).
