Jon Canfield

Digital black and white has probably never been more popular than it is today. All of the major editing programs like Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture support black-and-white conversions natively, and at a much higher quality than just a few years ago. While all of these programs can do black and white you can take your monochrome imagery to the next level with plug-ins, specific task programs that use the architecture of the main program to get the work done. These plug-ins (which may be available as “stand-alones” as well) produce some amazing work, letting you emulate various film types, grain patterns, and more, usually working with “presets” (image looks) that can be modified with ease to customize every image. Combined with the improved output from recent inkjet printers, there has never been a better time to explore digital black and white than today.

If this year's announcements at PMA are any indication, color management is coming to the masses in a big way. New products, lower prices, and ease of use are all coming together to make this once arcane and neglected area more available to everyone, from seasoned pro to casual digital photographer.

This year also saw consolidation in the market with two of...

With so much digital in evidence, you'd think scanning would be a hot area at PMA. At least, I was hoping it would be. There's a big gap in the middle when it comes to ways to get your film into the digital realm. You've got the low end, typically a normal flat-bed scanner that's optimized for reflective scans and does a mediocre job of scanning...

In a world of oversaturated color, I’m always surprised at the popularity of black and white images. There is something magical about a well-crafted image in monochrome that is more expressive than any color image could ever be. In fact, it was black and white that first interested me in photography. So, with digital photography, I’ve often done black and white conversions with a...