Will Crockett is widely considered one of the top experts in the digital photo universe and has designed the B&W shooting, file prep, and printing system for many professionals including the great Marc Hauser whose work is displayed here. Here are some tips for creating and preparing your files for the premium MyBWLab.net printing capability.
Tip ONE:
Shoot a B&W file. If you are a RAW shooter, use your RAW converter of choice to export a B&W file so that you can adjust the brightness, contrast and level in the RAW software. Lightroom is one of the best ways to produce a B&W file and we suggest following the suggestions of world-class shooter and Lightroom expert Michael Clark in this article right here. If your RAW converter does not offer a "B&W" or "Monochrome" setting, just desaturate the color to zero, but look into moving up to Lightroom?
Now if you're a JPEG shooter, please test out the B&W JPEG mode inside your camera. you can usually find the B&W MODE in your camera's COLOR MENU. If not, crack open the owners manual to discover the secret to unlocking it's B&W tonality. The Canon 5D and Fuji S5 for example have excellent B&W "interpreters" built into them that make amazing B&W jpeg files that mimic B&W neg film that you really should try out..
Tip TWO:
Converting Color Files to B&W. This can be a challenge because Photoshop does only a decent job at it. We think the best way to convert a color .JPG, .PSD or .TIF file is to use a Photoshop Plug In from Nik called Color Efex Pro 3. It has a wide array of B&W conversion "filters" that are as spectacular as they are simple t use. They offer a free 15 day trial too, click here for more info. Just remember that printing resources like MyBWLab.net will only print neutral tones, so any tinting filters you may use in Nik Color Efx will be stripped off.
Tip THREE:
Use a Profiled Monitor. Fine tuning the look and feel of your B&W images needs to be done on a computer monitor that is profiled using a pro level system, like the EyeOne Display 2 or the ColorMunki systems. Keeping your monitor as clear and accurate as possible is the key to brilliant B&W and you can check how well your screen-to-print match is by using the sweet target print provided by the good folks here ay MyBWLab.net. Click here for more info on the target print and how to use it to help you - it will also help with your in-house printing too.
Tip FOUR:
Avoid Damaging the File in Photoshop. Photoshop is a powerful tool, but it can easily damage a B&W file, particularly when you convert from a color file. Please don't discard the tone that can be deleted when incorrectly converting color to B&W by switching MODES from RGB to GREYSCALE. This really hacks away at the file's tonality. There are many ways to make a better conversion in Photoshop by using LAB COLOR or a NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER and we suggest learning more about them from one of the best instructors around, Suzette Allen, in this article here.
Tip FIVE:
All Prints from a Pro Lab are in sRGB. I know, sRGB is a small and rather restrictive color space, but if you carefully craft a high quality file in sRGB you really can get terrific tonality from a premium-grade printing resource like MyBWLab.net. This service will print out amazing neutral tone B&W prints using a dedicated Chromira printer that uses professional color paper. You may have had awful looking B&W from your lab when your files were printed onto color paper in the past, but this new technology that Buckeye / MyBWLab.net has developed will take a B&W sRGB file and make it sing. I've personally seen the large prints they have made for Marc Hauser's studio window and they rock.
I sure hope these tips have helped you to make some great images!
Will Crockett.
You can find even more tips like these from Will Crockett on ShootSmarter.com