photo - Ken Gilbert

pure black. Curves in the sandstone
layers and patterns in the
masonry offered the makings of a
great b&w print.
Ignore your camera’s b&w mode
and shoot in color, and, preferably,
in RAW. You’ll need the original
color data to create tonal separation
and other effects, such as
darkening of a blue sky or soften-
ing of skin tones. RAW fi les let
you—not the camera—make decisions
about brightness, contrast,
and color that are better judged
when viewing the image on a
color-calibrated desktop monitor
rather than a little LCD.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to
turning a captured image into a
gorgeous monochrome print.
STEP 1
Metering is crucial. In shooting the ruin,
I realized the full range of tones wouldn’t fi t
in a single exposure. I decided to sacrifi ce
shadow detail rather than lose the highlights—the
deepest shadows in the doorways
and cracks needed to be pure black, but the
highlights in the masonry held important
detail. So I kept my histogram bunched to the
right without clipping it off. Though the image
appeared very bright, it gave me the most
detail possible. I also checked the RGB color
histograms to avoid clipping in all channels,
paying special attention to the green channel.
STEP 2
Start in color. While Adobe Photoshop and
other imaging programs let you simply convert
an image into grayscale, it’s far better to keep the
image in RGB color mode and use better tools .
My fi rst step was to convert my RAW fi le to
a color TIFF, using Adobe Camera RAW. (You
can also use your camera maker’s proprietary
software or the RAW converters in Adobe
PRINTER SPOTLIGHT
CANON PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II
($730, street)
Ten Canon Lucia pigment-based inks include
three black/gray. Prints to 13x23 inches;
maximum paper thickness, 1.2mm.
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