David Bier Photography

I recently posted on the power of black and white photography, and I thought it may be interesting to the photography enthusiasts out there to see how I create my own black and white images. I’ll use an image from a recent shoot to illustrate the process.
Here is the image as it came straight out of camera (shot in colour).

I’m happy with it overall, but it could definitely do with a few tweaks. One of the first things I can see is that there are colour elements here that distract from the expressions – and it’s the expressions that I want to highlight, as they’re the heart and soul of the image. So the first thing I’ll do is a basic black and white conversion. Here is the picture with the colour removed.

I’m happy with the removal of that distracting element, but now the image looks pretty flat and muddy. The next thing I’ll do is change the balance of tones to give it some more punch, and I’ll sort out the brightness, contrast, and clean up some noise.

Now the image is starting to look more exciting. It still needs a little something though, so I’m going to add some vignetting/shading here and there to emphasise the important parts of the image and make them stand out a little more from the background. I’ll also add some very light coffee toning, which works well with my shooting style to create a warmer feel than a completely neutral tone.
Nearly there now but there are some minor tweaks and blemishes to take care of, which I’ll do in Photoshop. Here’s the final image.
When I’m editing a children’s photography session, I’ll be doing this level of editing to every image that my clients see. It’s very satisfying to pull the full potential from a raw photograph, and for the image you saw in your mind’s eye to be gradually revealed. Knowing that your clients and their children will live with a photograph in their home, for years, is a fantastic reward for all the time and effort involved.