What Percent of Photos Should Be Black & White?

If you're interested in having black & white photos shot at your wedding, you may be wondering what percent to have done in black & white and what percent to have in color. Like many things in photography, the answer to that depends. Unless you know you want all color or all black & white, a good percentage might be 25% black & white, 75% color. Or you could have two photographers, one who shoots all black & white and one who shoots all color.

But personally I would recommend shooting the entire event in color, and then converting the individual photos you want in black and white to that. The conversion is especially easy to do with digital photography; all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse. Some photographers don't like that approach, because they say that a good photographer will approach color and black & white photos differently -- and it's true. Certain photos will look better in color and others will look better in black and white, and there are different approaches to shooting each type of photo. But there is no connection between whether your digital camera is set to color or black & white and your approach. You can change your approach without changing the setting.

But the main reason that I recommend having them all shot in color is that it's nearly impossible to go from black & white to color. If you get a photo in black & white, and decide you'd rather have it in color, you're pretty much out of luck, especially if you want it in the "real" colors. Yes, you can colorize a photo. (And it IS possible to even get the colors pretty darn close to the "real" colors IF you have a nearly identical color photo to use in colormatching.) And some of the colorizing effects out there are beautiful. But these are all time-consuming and therefore expensive processes that may or may not get you the results you want.

On the other hand, going from color to black & white is a snap digitally.

© 2004-2008 Jacqueline L. Beck. All rights reserved.