Taking black & white digital pictures

[happy2bamom]

Do you have to buy a specific media card in order to take b&w pictures from a digital camera OR is it just a choice that is made upon ordering and printing the pictures? I've obviously never taken b&w photos, but I would like to when our baby is born in September. Thanks for your help (and I apologize if there is an obvious answer to this question, I"m not very technologically-minded).

[elliput]

For most digital cameras, B&W is an option you can chose - just like exposure and flash.

[bostonsmama]

No, you don't need a special memory card. Some cameras have the built-in feature of taking pics in b&w or sepia, but most can be edited through standard uploading and lab printing software from standard color photos.

Larissa
"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us--they help us learn to endure." Rom 5:3

Proud Aunt to Jack Dorian, b. 3/06

[shilo]

yep, yep, just like pp's said. check the manual of your camera, it should be a setting you can choose at the time you take the pic, OR, either you or the place you're ordering from can just 'change' a color photo to B&W using a software program afterwards. i personally prefer to just shoot everything in color and just edit it to B&W afterwards, if it's something i think would look better in B&W. "real" photog's would probably disagree with that tho :)... the B&W 'mode' on your camera will change some of the settings to be optimum for shooting the image in B&W to begin with, so you might want to play around with doing both. if you have/have access to a mac, iphoto has a 1 step process you can do to change anything to B&W and sepia. if not, i'm sure if you posted a couple of favorites here as jpegs and asked for some help, i'm sure one of 'us' would be happy to convert it for you in something like iphoto, photoshop/elements, etc. and send it back to you. if you pm me once your baby is here and you've taken some/picked some favorites, i'd be happy to do it for you.

lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[BillK]

"Most" point and shoot digital cameras will have a b & w or sepia mode - while "most" digital SLR cameras will not.

Oddly enough many folks moving up to a digital SLR are dismayed to find out their new $700+ camera won't take b & w shots and they have to use an external program to change them to b & w.

[ellies mom]

To echo everyone else, yes, your camera should have a setting for B&W. That said, I would recommend taking them in colour and converting them yourself. It isn't very hard to do and you can do a lot more tweaking to get the picture how you want, also you can do neat things like having something in the picture be in colour and the rest B&W, although some cameras do that also (mostly not very well)

[happy2bamom]

Thank you for helping me understand this process. I appreciate all of your input. I'll be back with more questions if I have trouble putting all of this information into practice.
Thanks again for taking time to help me.

[kellyotn]

Try Picasa from Google. Its a GREAT free program with a REALLY easy way to change to B&W or to Sepia. Does lots of other great stuff too.

I've printed a lot of pics just changing them in Picasa or in Photoshop, I don't have a photographer's eye, but they look very nice to me!

[shilo]

ack, you're totally right. i take it for granted since my D200 is one of those that does :). haven't played much with it tho, as i said, i'm not a purist, and the photoshop grayscale is so close to the onboard mode, it's almost indistinguishable.

lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.