• Removed user
    May 1, 2023, 1:29 p.m.

    "Black and White" is slightly bothersome - I would prefer "Grayscale" or "Greyscale" which does not imply that the image is comprised of only black and white tones.

    Since "monochrome photography" can be any hue, e.g. Sepia, it is a non-sequitur to the title.

    How about:

    The curious thing about the current category is the lack of posted tips and techniques or any discussion thereof ...
    ... almost begs for sub-categories:

    Or does "photography" in this category refer only to camera output, not post-processing?

  • Members 314 posts
    May 1, 2023, 2:54 p.m.

    Historically there is little ambiguity in the term Black and White photography since that is where it all started. Color films is a rather recent development and no one took color photography until Elliot Porter put it on the map as an artistic form of expression.

    Historically B&W photography also included toning, split toning, etc., so the tones were not simply "only shades of neutral gray. It's only recent that "black and white" has any connotation to pure black and pure white only and that arose out of the computer era - certainty not out the film era.

    I would expect there is room for all sorts of information to be shared including conversion of color images, B&W only camera discussion, specialized B&W printing and of course a place to share images. On the DPReview B&W forum, mostly it was sharing images and discussing those images with the occasional post on technique, cameras, etc. I don't see this forum any differently. I'm not sure it makes much sense to get hung up on names given the historical etymology of the phrase Black and White Photography.

  • Members 621 posts
    May 1, 2023, 3:11 p.m.

    I’ve never seen a roll of greyscale film where I shop…so I’ll stick with B&W. 😁

  • Foundation 1480 posts
    May 1, 2023, 3:22 p.m.

    Everyone understands the term Black and White: why change it?

    David

  • Removed user
    May 1, 2023, 4:53 p.m.

    Yes, perhaps a little too pedantic. As an engineer, I tend to disrespect the vagueness of the photographic lexicon, viz "exposure", "resolution", etc.

    Good to see that the historical etymology of the phrase Black and White Photography includes split-toning ...

    split toned.jpg

    split toned.jpg

    JPG, 742.7 KB, uploaded by xpatUSA on May 1, 2023.

  • Members 314 posts
    May 1, 2023, 8 p.m.

    Yes toning prints it is a long standing chemical process in the darkroom. It was initially developed to increase the lifetime of the prints and is based on replacing the metallic silver in the emulsion. One has silver gelatin prints and platinum and palladium prints. Silver gelatin prints can be toned with multiple different toners. One of the reasons Edward Westons prints has such long beautiful smooth tonality was he used a platinum printing process where platinum was the underlying metal.