How to See Photos in Black and White Monoimages March 16, 2015 Articles Turning your images into great black and white photos is actually quite simple once you learn a few key skills. You’ll soon be taking great images which you can then turn into spectacular black and white photos. Visualize Your Subject The first thing you need to learn to do well is visualize how the final shot is going to look. You need to keep the tones, textures and shapes in mind and imagine how this will translate onto a black and white image. The main image may appear in a different shade of grey to the background so make sure that there is some contrast in tone and texture between them. You need to keep in mind all the colour in the shot when taking the image and try to picture what shade of grey each colour will be when converted. One useful thing you can do right now is to convert some of your existing images to black and white to get an idea of how the images convert from colour. This will make it easier to judge how your shots will turn out before you take them. Elements of a Good Black and White Photo Contrast The entire image relies on contrast so you need to focus on subjects that have strong shapes and lines. Also pay attention to the light and dark areas of the image and ensure that there is a strong contrast between these. Texture Interesting textures like water, clouds or foliage can add depth to your shots, and adding some side lighting to this will help enhance the textures. Tone You want to ensure that your subjects translate into a good range of tones, a good result would be if the subject has a range of grey from dark black to pure white. But don’t overdo this, make sure there are some grey tones in the middle to balance the picture and so it doesn’t look too unrealistic.