Lesson 9 Quiz

Without the distraction of color, tone carries all the weight in a black-and-white photograph. The relationship between light, dark, and gray determines whether the image has atmosphere and drama, or falls completely flat.

Black and white records only brightness, not hue. Two colors that look very different, such as a red and a green of similar brightness, can turn into nearly the same gray, so the converted image looks flat. Too much contrast between colors would help the conversion, not hurt it.

Tonal range is the span of tones in an image from the lightest highlight to the darkest shadow. A wide range runs from near white to near black; a narrow range stays close to the middle grays and looks flat. It is about brightness, not the number of colors.

A histogram is a graph of tones in your image, from dark on the left to bright on the right. It shows where your exposure sits and helps you catch blown highlights or crushed shadows before you leave the scene. Learning to read a histogram removes guesswork from exposure.

In Photoshop, Image > Adjustments > Levels opens the Levels dialog, which shows the image's histogram above the black, gray and white sliders. You can read the tonal range there and adjust it directly. The other menu paths are for selections, transforms and blur filters.

A narrow, balanced tonal range produces a flat, lifeless gray image. Pushing tones toward the extremes, even at the expense of symmetry, gives black-and-white photographs the contrast and energy that holds a viewer's attention.

Rich blacks anchor the image and prevent it from looking washed out; bright whites create highlights that draw the eye. The interplay between these extremes gives black-and-white photographs their graphic punch.

Black and white photographs are made only of tones, so practice means looking at a scene and judging how light or dark each part is, not what color it is. With that habit you can spot scenes that will convert well before you shoot. Focusing on color is exactly what to unlearn.

Black and white keeps only brightness. Light blue and yellow are different hues but can have similar brightness, so in conversion they may become almost the same gray and the difference between them disappears from the picture. A color filter or conversion adjustment can separate them again.

Flat images result from compressing all tones into the mid-gray range. Deliberately including areas of near-black shadow and near-white highlight stretches the tonal range and gives the photograph dimensionality.