Lighting Indoors Part 3

I've briefly mentioned window light, but I want to talk more about it today. My home faces East to West so there are two short periods during the day that I get good window lighting. This happens a few hours after sun rise when the the sun raises above the roof of my neighbor's house, and the second is in the evening just prior to sun set when the light is bounced off of the same neighbor's house and into our windows. The evening light is softer and the color can be problematic since it's later in the day and the house it's reflecting off is blue but the results have been interesting for sure. This is why I've suggested a north or south facing window to be the best (depending on which hemisphere you live in.)

Here are some window light photos. The first is from 10am the second is at 4pm. It was an usually nice day yesterday, so when the light came in the living room in the morning I had more light to work with. By the early afternoon when the sun was going down my results are different. (Plus the second photo is not so flattering as the first of me. I guess that's what I get for doing self portraits with a timer.) Both shots with a 50mm lens but the ISO has been raised for the second image to make it work. This is also a good opportunity to talk about noise. Here are some crops of the same photos at 100%. These are unedited. To help reduce the noise I used the Dfine 2.0 plug in on the last crop.

Very little noise in the background. This was at ISO 200.

Not so pretty... This is shot at ISO 800.

This image has had the noise reduced slightly but it's still not as nice as the ISO 200 shot. This is why I try to avoid higher ISO's unless it's totally necessary.  It simply saves time while post processing. I have gotten nice results with ISO's up to 1600 but it took some extra work. I'd rather be on the couch watching a movie personally...

A couple things to remember when shooting with window light.

• You will almost always need a reflector to fill in the shadow portion of a person's face. Contrast can be problematic in shots like these. I was holding a reflector just off camera left in the first shot. I didn't need one for the evening shot since the light was very flat!
  
• Watch for color shift. At different times of day you'll find the color of the light will vary. The color is the second shot hasn't been edited- it's right out of camera. I look slightly blue green, not so pretty as the warm glow of the direct sun light in the first shot.
  
• I recommend using a tripod for any shots like this. You will most likely be shooting at wide open apertures with higher ISO's, and even then need a longer exposure to gather the light necessary. The morning light shot was 1/40 @ F8. I don't recommend hand holding 1/40 with a 50mm. I get camera shake every time. The evening shot was even slower. Even with the ISO at 800 I still could only manage a 1/20 @ F2.8 exposure. Big difference.
  
• It also might help to use a spot metering mode (where available) to expose for your highlights only instead of metering the whole scene. Focus of capturing the subject only- let the other details and background go. If those elements are vital to your image, you'll need to rethink your lighting. I spot metered the morning image and you can see that the background goes darker behind me. The evening photo has more detail in the background because of the longer exposure.

Tomorrow: More on ambient light in doors. How to work with light when there isn't very much!

Post Processing Cliche's

Yes, this is the same pair of shoes from yesterday. If you didn't like the shot the first time around I suggest you stop reading now and wait for tomorrow's post since I'm going to show you several versions of this same image edited different ways. The version above is an example of high contrast. If you look at the dress and the Bride's legs, all detail has pretty much been washed out. I also pumped up the saturation.  Here's the original for a reference point.

Now the contrast shift isn't something I normally do, I like my highlights and shadows to have as much detail as possible, but for this image I really think it works. The original looks as if it was shot in Seattle in January (oh wait...). The increased saturation and brightness gives it warmth that is much needed. It's a moderate adjustment, not heavy handed or overbearing. Thus the reason I like it. Note: use the brightness/contrast and hue/saturation adjustments with moderation. A little goes a long way.

Too often though photographers are turning to gimmicks in post processing to turn images into something better. Truth is, if the image wasn't great in the first place, no amount of adjustment layers in photoshop is going to make it a great photo. You have to start with something worth looking at! The easiest analogy I can think of is macaroni and cheese. If you've ever had the homemade real cheese, whole milk, and baked in the oven all day version the blue box of funny shaped pasta and fake cheese looks like crap on a cracker. My point is that it's all about ingredients and skill.

So let's talk trends. My number 1 hated trend these days, grunge textures. To me this feels way to contrived. Now back in the film days I was all about purposefully damaging film and printing it. Processing it wrong, lighting it on fire, you name it. It was great fun and the results were terrible some times and magical the next. It was so unpredictable. Adding layers of other photos (mainly of junk, rust, and other randomness) doesn't have the same spontaneity. Here's my example.

The edges have been roughed up slightly and two different images have been sandwiched on top. The saturation on the background was also pulled down to -43. Shoes were masked out to preserve their color but ultimately I lightened them and adjusted the hue slightly. I also added chromatic abrasion (under the lens correction filter) and a vignette. I don't see this effect on wedding photos often, these days it's mainly on senior photos and it makes me throw up a little in my mouth every time I look at it. Once or twice is fine, but it shouldn't be on every image in a portfolio. It's not a style at that point it's a handycap.

Next up: Black and white with selective color.
I get asked by brides all the time if I can do this. Short answer: yes. Long answer: Do I have to? It reminds me of a '80 cherry coke commercial OR Schindler's List, possibly the worst movie you could associate with your wedding. But since I aim to please, I do it again and again. Granted it will NEVER make it into my portfolio.

This is actually very easy to do at home. Simply create a Black and White adjustment layer and then paint on the layer mask black where you want the color to show through. Only trick is making sure you mask is perfect so no other colors are visible. Oh, one other movie reference just came to mind. Wizard of Oz. It's officially cliche' if it's been done for 70 years or more. The funny thing is, I bet someone reading this blog will love this version the best. Go ahead, say it, I have to admit I kinda like it too... but that's the funny thing about cliche's they work most of the time. Otherwise why would we keep doing it?

Finally we go off the deep end and mess with the colors just to show you how to ruin an image.

This is a mix of a cyanotype with the selective color. Only one word for this version, Yikes. Believe it or not folks, I've seen stuff like this in "professional" portfolios. What do we learn here? Just because you can do it in Photoshop doesn't mean you should. Blue feet say "dead bride" probably not a good visual message to send. Honestly, our brains are trained to see color a specific way and though it's fun to create images that challenge that perception, there is a limit. You need to always be cognitive of what message you are sending.
Final score? Two of the above versions get a thumbs up (high contrast and selective color) where two don't (cold feet and grunge layers). Oh and don't get me started on cheesy quotes on photographs. I dry heave every time I see a photo frame with "Live, Laugh, Love" on it. Photos should speak for themselves. If narration is required, something is wrong.

That concludes today's personal rant.

Just keep it simple folks. The best images are always the ones filled with emotion. Tell a story, make it simple, honest, and personal. You can't photoshop that stuff in.

Basic Masking techniques for Photoshop

Terice did a training session this week for a family of seven. Five extroverted school age kids and their parents. The sessions was a great chance for her to not only learn a little more about lighting and posing but to focus on her people skills. Making a group laugh simultaneously is an art form. And many times it involves using potty humor to crack a smile on some of the tougher characters. So after about a half an hour of trying to pose a non-traditional family the way the Cleavers would be photographed, we gave the kids sunglasses, fur coats, and our permission to jump around like monkeys.

Jumping shots are hard and it takes 2-3 dozen with a large group to get a perfect shot. This ones isn't perfect by any means but it'll do in a pinch. There is a feeling of motion, even though their feet aren't all visibly off the ground, and the oldest has some how managed to be perfectly hidden by his brothers. You could almost photoshop him out of this one for a better image but I'm sure he's parents would mind.

Photoshop is the only way this image even came together in the first place though. I gave Terice permission early in the shoot to frame a little wider then the background if needed so there would be room to crop for 8x10's. This is what she thought I meant:

No lighting diagram necessary today folks, you can see the actual lights for yourself! All honest mistakes aside, this gave me the opportunity to go over the basic ways to mask out an image and remove background. Here's the steps I took:

• Using the magic lasso tool I selected a much of the background as I could. I set my tolerance to 20 (normally anywhere between 10-40 is good for shots with good contrast) and held down the shift key to continually add to the selection. Once I had a large portion of the image selected, I created a layer mask. The selected areas are represented by black on the layer mask and are now hidden but they still exist.

As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done.

• Next I selected the layer mask and using the paint brush tool (set to black) I painted directly on the mask and removed the larger sections I couldn't get rid of with the magic lasso tool.

• Now comes the hard part. I zoomed into 300 percent and starting with the girl in the orange jacket, I began outlining each person with the pen tool. I like this tool because it can create a clipping path quickly and easily (using the shortcut keys and mouse).To use the pen tool you create points with each click. If you hold the point and drag two handles will appear from each point allowing you to curve the path. You can then adjust it to fit percisely along the area you wish to mask. Once I have outlined the section I can go back and adjust any of the points until it fits correctly. Under the Path's window you'll see a "working path" which is the outline you just created. By clicking the "load path as selection" option you can now take invert the selection (ctrl+I) and use the paint brush again to paint black on your mask and remove anything you don't like. The problem? This method takes forever! It is very accurate though and it came in handy around the orange coat and the fur (girl on right).
• Where the clipping path didn't look right was around the girl's flying hair. Here I used the magnetic lasso (which is a similar tool but the computer is selecting the points and not you) to get closer. This tool doesn't work well in areas with little contrast. 
• Both of those tools helped but the hair still needed a little finessing, so I use the paint brush tool and painted white on the layer mask to bring back some of the gray background and zooming up to 400% I took out smaller groups and tried to randomly select what to remove. 
• Last step for the hair was to make a duplicate layer and add the motion blur filter to it. I also dodged out the ends of the hair (midtones at 53%) to they were lighter and didn't has such a sharp line around them. Finally I created a mask of the duplicate layer, filled it with black and then painted in with white the small bit of hair I wanted to show through.
  

Total work time on this ONE  image? An hour and a half. I do not suggest doing this on a regular basis unless your client is paying you by the minute for retouching. A better bet is to find a way to do it in camera. This could mean a completely different pose, or crop. In Terice's defense, there was really no way to make all of these kids fit the background. Next time we'll try this shot on location where the background is not a problem.

I didn't even touch on the quick mask because I hate it. I avoid the paint brush as a masking tool since it leaves a feathered effect around the edges that looks fake to me. I want crisp clean lines, not hazing hap-hazard photoshop work.

Random Question: My birthday is at the end of the month, what photo gear should my husband buy me as a present? $50.00 or less would be preferrable.

I like this one

When an image turns out just as you wish, it's a good day. The client for this shoot wanted something with the feel of old Hollywood with a modern twist, and the added bonus of getting to enhale a ton of second hand smoke. The exposure ended up being F18 @ 1/4 sec, so I could get the smoke trail. The strong side lighting is kind of my "thing".  I'd love to know what you think... comments?

Equipment Needs for Starting Your Own Photography Business

No photo today, instead I'm answering the question I hear all the time, "If I want to be a professional photographer, what do I need?"  So today I'm playing  personal shopper.

Since I started shooting professionally my work habits and subsequently my equipment have evolved. With each new toy my style shifted towards a new method. For the bulk of my career I have been a location and event photographer. My desire to eat and pay off my school loans was more pressing then having my name displayed across a store front window. This last year was my chance to" have it all" you might say. I took advantage of the extreme desperation of many landlords in the commercial real estate market and got myself a studio. Unlike a lot of other photographers, I've never wanted to work for National Geographic or Rolling Stone. I always wanted to be my own boss and retire early thanks to the success of my portrait studio. This year I'm one step closer and feeling like I should generously share some of my wisdom with someone standing in the same spot I was 10 years ago.

If I had it all to do over again, and the desire to max out a credit card, this is what I'd buy to help me start my photography business. I'm cheep, so I chose affordable but quality products. That said; be prepared for sticker shock.

1. Camera:  Nikon D3s is what I'd but tomorrow if I needed another camera, even though it's a little weightier then I'd like. I would just need more VR lenses. Currently I'm using a D300 which I love, but it's missing a few things the D3s has, like a full frame sensor and HD video. $5,200.

2. Lighting equipment: I've looked into and used most equipment on the market. I used Speed-a-tron and Profoto almost exclusively in college. (So many trips to the rental counter at Glazers.) When I finally decided to jump in I bought a White Lighting monolight kit after months of research. For what I do (weddings and portraits) I've been very happy. I bought my equipment one piece at a time since that's all I could afford but the best deal is their professional package. I wouldn't use their light stands though, not my favorite. Price tag: just under $2400 for pretty much everything they offer in one package. You'll need to add a vagabond battery pack or two for $300 each to complete the shopping spree.

3. For when you plan to be a little more portable, I like the Nikon Speedlight series. I suggest having a half a dozen on hand if you plan on going this route and skipping the "big lights" all together. Buy a SB900 for it's ability to control all of the other units and the range, then finish out the group with SB600s since they will be just working on remote. You might also consider the R1C1 flash since this is great for fill on portraits as well as macro.

4. Lenses: Which lenses you buy depends on what you shoot. Portrait photographers can't be without a  85mm and 50mm. If you're shooting weddings like me, you'll want to add a wide angle, say 12mm) and a telephoto, like a 200mm (or whatever you like best) for those weddings where you can't leave the choir loft of the church. It's up to you if you decide to do zoom lenses or prime. This is where you want to spend your money though. Choose a lens with sharp glass that can open to at least F3.5. Here are some of my favorite lenses:

Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX Nikkor Lens

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G Autofocus Lens

Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens

Nikon PC-E Micro Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ED Manual Focus 

Nikon Telephoto AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF Autofocus Lens

 Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II EX DG APO Macro HSM AF Lens for Nikon

 5. Reflectors! I've mentioned before you can use foam core for a white reflector and many craft stores sell these in large sizes. $20.00 is a nice price for a solution. You might also want to pick up a few collapsible reflectors. A silver and gold both can come in handy and having larger sizes help to light more people on location and in studio.($80 each) Most importantly, a large translucent reflector for when you need to use speedlights but you want to diffuse them over a wider distance. Smaller reflectors can come in handy too, plus fit into an overhead compartment.

6. For Backgrounds I use a white vinyl seamless since it's durable and easy to clean.($250) For a less expensive option you might try seamless paper, but be careful, one crease or puncture can equal many cumulative hours of post processing time you'll never get back. 

7. You'll also want to pick up wireless transmitters for the "big lights", light stands and modifiers and filters, a lifetime supply of duct and gaffer's tape, some very sturdy hard cases to hold your equipment, and a bachelor's in business management. 

I'm not kidding about the last one. Going pro isn't necessarily about being talented and hoping "the work will sell itself." That's your job. You'll need to study up on current marketing trends and write a business plan for the loan you'll be taking out to pay for all this junk. Once that's done you'll need to spend a lot of time praying! I promise you no successful small business owner is an atheist. The first thing you realize when you strike out on your own is that you need divine assistant if you're ever to get off the ground. No matter how talented you are or not, you have to be incredibly self motivated to work freelance or be a business owner. Be honest with yourself and analytical before committing to anything. You're in for more then a full time job, since you'll be an accountant, receptionist, customer service team, tech support, and if you're lucky you'll have time to shoot once and a while! So, why do I do it you ask? Because I wouldn't want to live any other way. To those that share my sentiment, I wish you great success and I hope to be reading your blog soon!

Last tip: Never stop learning. Read every blog, book, or magazine even remotely related to photography. Always try new things and constantly work to improve your portfolio. Challenge your self to do things differently and learn from every bad exposure. Be prepared to bore anyone that asks you a photo question with long winded answers that go above and beyond what they actually wanted to know, and hire an assistant that you want to hang out with. 

Tomorrow:  Now that you've decided against being your own boss, how to get a job as a photographer... Just kidding, those jobs are all taken. Semi colon right side parentheses. ;)

 

 

Studio Lighting Basics: Part 1 "Feel the Light"

In college one of my more ego maniacal  instructors (keep in mind they ALL fit into this category) brought in a single light head on a stand with a soft-box to class. He had the entire group stand with arms out in front of it repeating "I feel the light!" as if we were impersonating a gospel choir. His point? At a certain level you need to act instinctively about how you use light. Studio photography is the best example since you have complete control over every light source and direction. So I want to take the next few days and go over some of the basics about how to light in a studio and why the classics work so well. Then I want to talk about breaking out of the box and doing things differently. That's where the whole "Feeling the Light" really matters. So please to anyone reading, take what you see here, and apply these techniques creatively; by all means make it your own! That's what art is all about, yes? I'll provide the method you're responsible for the mood.

First thing first, think of light as your most basic tool. Keep in mind how changing light alters the emotion of an image and where it's placed is the key to telling a subject's story. And everything has a story. How interesting it is, well, that's up to you.

So let's start with some lingo.

Key (or main) Light: Just what it sounds like. This is normally the brightest light in the set up. Often times it's that big glowing ball in the sky.

Fill Light: This is the light, or sometimes a reflector that fills in the shadows to help reduce contrast or illiminate shadows all together.

Background Light: The light that illumniates the background.

Hair Light or Rim Light: A light positioned behind the subject and sometimes what helps to separate the subject and background from one another.

Monolight: Flash unit that is self contained and uses AC power.

Lens Flair: Light that is reflected back into the camera lens. Not fun to try to remove in post processing.

Lighting ratio: A mathematical way of describing how bright the main light is compared to the fill light.

Wireless Remote: Sounds redundant I know, but these little guys, AKA radio transmitters, signal flash units from the camera so all units fire simultaneously.

Diffuser: A device used to disperse light and soften shadows. A few popular ones are: softboxes, unbrellas (reflective and translucent) a beauty dish and diffusion sock, etc.

Specular Highlight: A bright spot of light that appears in shiny objects. Often called catch lights when observed in portraits, this is the glow you see in people's eyes. It is also the easiest way to determine how a photograph was lit. I simply look for the reflection in the subject's eyes to tell me how to recreate the same shot.

Reflector: A surface that reflects light. (Obvious I know) They come in many varieties. Gold and silver reflectors add either a warm or cool tone to an image where white stays color neutral. The bigger the reflector, the more diffused the light. The closer the reflector is to the light source the greater the intensity of the reflected light. 

Okay let's start off small. Let's talk about lighting with just a key light and go from there.

All you Anne Geddes fans here's a knock off for you. This image used a single key light and my husband draped in black fabric. I know what you're thinking, and no he won't wax his arms for a re-shoot. This kind of image is very popular (can't quite figure out why) and easy to do. My key light was a single unit pointed towards the ceiling at a 45 degree angle to give it some direction and its positioned a little bit off of camera right. By pointing the light up it filled the whole room and broadly lit both baby and my toga wearing husband. ( I should have gotten a photo of him to show you. Especially since the whole thing was held on by a few "A" clamps in the back. Pretty hilarious actually.) Here's a diagram to help illustrate. I used an umbrella since it was already on the light-stand and any extra diffusion is okay with me, but the ceiling is really what did the work. As I said before, the larger the area light can reflect off of, the more dispersed it will be. Nine foot ceilings painted white are a portrait photographer's best friend when on location. Luckily for me the same trick works in my studio as well.

One thing I do need to mention here is that this lighting method (sometimes referred to as a broad lighting pattern) means that in the original image there was a good amount of detail visible in the black material around Caleb's body. There are two ways to correct this:

1. GOBO the light. This stands for "GOes Before Optics" and is basically anything that is dark that will be put in front of a light source to change how it looks. Black matt board is a cheep and easy solution. Hang a few of these from light stands or have an assistant hold them in place so as to remove light that was falling on spots it shouldn't be.
2. Use the Dodge and Burn tool in Photoshop. 

I'll admit I chose option two since it was more convenient at the time, but GOBO's are  especially useful and something no photographer should be without. The best part is how creative you can get with one. Anything can be a GOBO. Just as long as it casts a shadow. Scrims are similar to GOBO's but they are translucent and they are used more as a diffuser then a light blocker. I have a 7' by 10' collapsible scrim but I've seen other photographers use white sheets, shower curtains, etc.

One thing you have be careful of when using one light source is separation. Does the shadow areas on your subject blend into the background? This mistake is most commonly made when the subject has dark hair and the background is black or they have on dark clothing. It creates what I like to call FHS or Floating Head Syndrome. Again this reinforces the point I made earlier, you must "Feel the Light" and that means controlling it! When one light won't do, you add another, or a reflector, until you've correctly lit your subject in a way that is pleasing and distinguishable.
Tomorrow we'll expand on this same idea and move up to two lights sources.

My Favorite Photog Blogs

There have been a lot of changes to our family and my life in the last few months. Alex joined our family two weeks ago today; in August, was the grand opening of Irene Jones Photography: a retail studio in Everett WA, my husband joined facebook and has become hopelessly addicted to it, and I entered the blog-o-sphere. Twitter was frightening as first but I'm starting to get the hang of it and it's opened my eyes to literally THOUSANDS of great photographers world wide to adore and hopefully emulate their success as my career progresses. It was hard but I narrowed it down to a few blogs I want to share and I think readers of my blog will enjoy. Here they are, in no particular order.

Joey Lawrence: The Blog
http://www.joeyl.com/blog/
I'm seriously considering buying his Tutorial DVDs, mainly since I am a novice when it comes to HDR and this guy has taken it to new levels. $300 is pretty steep for a miser like me, but I just might be persuaded. If nothing else his gallery is most defiantly worth a look.

The Lighting Diagram Creator
http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/
Can you say super cool free resource? No more stick figures for this blog.


Photo Answers Online
http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/
Easy to understand video tutorials for all skill levels and sexy British accents. The 15 year old girl in me loves this one.

Strobist
http://strobist.blogspot.com/
By far my favorite. Smart, funny, informative, and some of the best comments I've ever seen on any blog. These are my kind of people.

Digital Photography School
http://digital-photography-school.com/
Can't afford the tuition of Brooks or Art Center? Well this is not a substitute for a formal education but it is a good place to discuss and share. The best part of attending any school is the community of peers and while some people on these forums consider themselves all knowing grand masters of the photographic medium, more then not the shared experience is beneficial to all that participate. Overall, great topics, variety and contests that don't seem rigged!

Joe McNally's Blog
http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/
My personal hero. His resume is everything I dreamed mine would be. His blog is a personal log as well as a photography gallery. Warning: on occasion he might "over share" and include details about getting a colonoscopy and such. The post "Letter to a Young Photographer" is simply beautiful.

Lighting Practice
http://mr-chompers.blogspot.com/2009/08/journeyinpostprocessing.html
Very well explained tutorials and examples.

The Photographic World of Drew Gardner
http://photography-thedarkart.blogspot.com/
Great images with lots of tech stuff. What more could a girl want?

Jerry O'Connor
http://geroco.blogspot.com/
I love the way this guy lights. Check out this flickr page for great images and info.

Yanik's Photo School
http://yanikphotoschool.com/
Easy to follow tutorials and if you follow on Twitter, more great resources.

So there you have it! My favorites I've discovered and wanted to share. Do you have a favorite? Please share!

Panorama: How to shoot and stitch with CS4

When I was in college one of my assignments was to shoot and then combine photos into a panorama. Back then we were using Photoshop 7 the software that would put together panoramas was just barely hitting the market. It was still better to do the work yourself, one photo at a time. Today the process is uncomplicated and available to anyone with CS4. Here's what you need to do.

1. Choose your location. I love night shots and downtown Seattle. So during a warm summer night I spent an hour on the corner of Pike and 4th Ave shooting a variety of frames.
2. Keep the following things in mind while shooting: use a 50mm lens to avoid distortion, overlap enough to provide a reference point, and use a tripod. It's hard to keep the same position when hand holding and the slightest movements on your part can ruin your hard work. Plus if you choose to do a night shot like me, your exposures will be for several seconds each. I would also suggest shooting with a small aperture, say F22 for maximum depth of field.
3. Once you've taken your shots and selected the frames you want to use open them in Photoshop CS4. You can also select a folder where your images are, but I like to open them first just to make sure they are the ones I wanted since I always shoot more versions then I need, just in case.

4. Select File>Automate>Photomerge to start the process. A window will open listing a number of different options for how to best create the final image. Feel free to experiment with each of these to get the results you want. Auto worked for this image and so did Reposition, both options will probably work for most people, especially if you follow my advice and use a 50mm lens and tripod.
5.  Add Open files and then go make a sandwich while CS4 does the work.
6. Crop your image since there will be jagged edges and edit your image for color, sharpness, and contrast as necessary.
7. Buy a very long, skinny frame.

Tomorrows blog post:Color balance and correction.

Photographing Infants: Why Black and White is Back

Today I want to get a little more technical and talk about color vs. black and white. For my generation black and white is very popular. We ( the 20 and 30 somethings out there) associate it with editorial or candid photography and consider it timeless.  My parents age group (baby boomers) often find black and white boring. The main difference stems from the fact that color photography did not become widely used until the late 1950's and into the '60's. Color films ( such as Kodak's Kodachrome) had been available to the public since 1935 but was considerably more expensive and difficult to process compared to black and white.  As color movies became more popular in theaters and color televisions became fixtures in homes across America, consumers turned from "traditional" black and white films to the vibrant colors of slide film. With this transition a new form of torture was invented; the slide show. Countless girlfriends and neighbors have been bored to tears during one of these events. 2009 was the year in which Kodachrome was retired by Kodak marking the end of an era. No worries though, thanks to social networking and the advent of digital photography badly exposed or blurry/unrecognizable images are everywhere and multiplying at an exponential rate. Now would probably be a good place to mention my Facebook page! Please become a fan. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Shameless self promoting aside, let's see some photos shall we? In case you haven't already guessed. These are my baby's feet. This image above was shot at 1/60 @F2.8 with my 50mm lens.
For comparison sake, the same image is shown in color on the right. Notice the difference in contrast between the black and white version and the color version. Personally I like my color images with less contrast and I avoid over saturation since I also want my colors to look natural.
 Black and white is a different story though, additional contrast is necessary to help separate the shades of gray from one another. It also changes the mood of an image. The black and white version emphasizes texture.  By removing the distraction of color the viewer looks only at the light and shadows. This most basic photographic style hits directly to the heart of what photography is all about: the interplay of light and dark. This is also why it lends itself so nicely to infant portraits. Infant portraits most frequently seek to minimize the amount of information in an image and instead focus your attention on the tiny features of newborns.
Since most of us aren't shooting black and white film let's talk about how to make the best possible black and white image from a digital file.  Photoshop provides several ways to convert an image to black and white, a few of which I'll show you here. Lightroom also does a very nice job with black and white. Let's start with Photoshop. The most basic ways to change a color image to black and white in Photoshop is either the Desaturate or convert to Grayscale  Here are the results.

The Desaturate option converts colors exactly as they are where the grayscale tries to estimate what they should be. Both are good efforts but not exactly right. With either method, all of the colors are converted to a shade of gray. Reds and greens often become the same when converting between color and black and white. The image then looses contrast and lacks a diversity in the tonal range. Or as my college professors used to say it looks "flat" or "muddy". I always wanted to ask if those were technical terms...  When the tonal range has been dramatically reduced like this doesn't the image seem less interesting since the details are not as clearly visible? To fix this the next step needs to be introducing more contrast to increase the tonal range. This can also be done a number of varying ways. Adjusting the Brightness/contrast is the most basic but it gives you the least amount of control.

Select Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast to get the menu shown above. I increased the contrast 100 percent (I would have done more if possible) and decreased the brightness slightly (shown as a negative number). Here is the resulting image.

As you can see much better contrast, details in the highlights and shadows and more dimension in the midtones, but more can be done.

When using the levels adjustments (Image>Adjustment>Levels) you have three sliders, black on the left, midtones in the middle (obviously) and white on the right. By adjusting these sliders (your midpoint moves whenever you adjust either the black or white) together or separately you can increase contrast. Since the levels adjustment is based on the histogram of the image you can see visibly where the tones lie and change the image accordingly.  One step better then using the levels is the Curves adjustments. Like the levels adjustments, curves are based upon the histogram. The main difference is when editing with the curves is control. You can also plot points along the histogram where you would like to retain specific values and expand or decrease the amount of highlights and shadows individually.. In the next screen shot you'll notice three lines in the curves window that overlap the histogram. The blue line is the suggested balance, the gray is the original tonal range and the black in my adjustments.

Better then converting to grayscale or desaturating,  Black and White adjustment combines the steps we've been talking about while providing the most versatility. Select Image>Adjustment>Black and White.

You'll notice that the colors are represented by percentages and that reds and greens are displaying at the same value as well as blues and yellows. These percentages reflect the shade of gray. By adjusting the percentages of each of these colors the tonal range expands and contrast increases.

The adjusted values are:
reds: 10%
Yellows: 49%
Greens: 31%
Cyans: 79%
Blues: 73%
Magentas: 45%
Notice how the version of our feet photo in the screen shot looks rich and interesting. The details are more pronounced and all of the shades of gray separate creating a more visually dynamic image.

For Lightroom the process is similar to the black and white adjustment in Photoshop, the terminology is the only difference. Select your image in the develop module and then use the grayscale button to convert into grayscale. You can then adjust your highlights with the recovery slider and the shadows with the fill light and/or blacks sliders. Contrast is pretty self explanatory. By adjusting each of these separately you can gain the most control over the tonal range of the image. Best part is that with Lightroom you can make these adjustments on multiple images.

The first black and white version of this image was edited with Lightroom. Just for fun, here's a few more photos of Alex also edited in Lightroom by applying the same settings as the baby feet photo..

Though I have talked a great deal about the benefits of black and white over color I don't want to diminish color photography. As with all styles, each has a place and purpose. When it comes to infant photography I personally prefer the black and white because of it's simplicity. Details, texture, and light are emphasized. Room is provided for story telling. It only seems appropriate that the simplest members of the human family are documented in a simplified format. Let me know what you think. I'd love to read your comments!

Next up tips for making an infant portrait shoot more successful.