My Black and White Workflow

Today I was asked about my black and white workflow. I thought I might answer it here as well:

I only shoot raw, both with my Leica and my Fuji cameras, so technically, there is always color information there. (Hence I was able to convert this image back to color.)

But usually, I never see my images in color, ever.

That is because I have set all of my cameras to black and white, using the “Monochrom” mode on the Leicas and the ACROS (Yellow) film simulation on the Fujis. That way I only see b/w images when looking through the EVF or at the display, both when shooting and also when I review the photos I have taken.

Photo Mechanic, which I use for editing, shows me monochrome photos too, as it uses the preview images generated by the cameras.

And finally, when I import my photos into Lightroom, I have it set up so that it applies a custom preset using a B&W profile (mostly Adobe Monochrome) to the images right away.

That’s it. 🙂

All that being said, I obviously shoot in color sometimes. I even have a whole project I shoot in color.

I also think it is important to note, that some photos do not work in b/w – and some don’t work in color. That is why I usually decide whether to shoot either b/w or color before going out/taking the first picture, because – at least for me – seeing works differently in both cases. I probably should elaborate on that in another post…