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Grainy Black and White Settings

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
There may be some Olympus photographers here, who may be like myself - - - for several years, I have loved the use of Olympus' Grainy Black and White setting - but all I ever did was select that Art 5 filter without any consideration to there also being customization available for it. For anyone wondering how to find them, here is how you can set the option for the normal contrasty black and white setting or a lower contrast setting.

In the Art Filter Menu, with "Art 5" in focus, click the right arrow and the first submenu should have a I and a II. I is for contrasty and II is lower contrast. The differences are subtle but significant. This customization menu also allows for a film edge and colour filter adjustments as well.

I'm having my morning coffee, so just set my camera on my laptop to snag these 2 shots of each config. You can recognize in the doorway at the back, how the lower contrast setting has so much more detail. I like the contrasty setting (top) for a lot of the work that I shoot with the Grainy Black and White, but it's nice to have an option of lower contrast (bottom) depending on the content.



TravelLiteShootHeavy-20150427-EPL57787.jpg


TravelLiteShootHeavy-20150427-EPL57786.jpg


 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief


TravelLiteShootHeavy-20150427-EPL57787.jpg


TravelLiteShootHeavy-20150427-EPL57786.jpg


[/QUOTE]


Robert,

It's great to see that difference. In practice, can yo dispense with processing in Lightroom or Photoshop?

Rarely do I not want to edit!

Asher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member


Robert,

It's great to see that difference. In practice, can yo dispense with processing in Lightroom or Photoshop?

Rarely do I not want to edit!

Asher[/QUOTE]

These are straight from the camera Asher with just resizing for web and sharpening - so yes you don't have to use Lightroom or Photoshop. The reason that I added sharpening, is because with my normal workflow, I turn in-camera sharpening to it lowest setting. But in-camera sharpening would negate the need for post-sharpening.

I am naturally a heavy cropper of my images. One thing that I am enjoying with the Grainy Black and White setting and making use of the frame edge setting - - - is that it is forcing me to be content with the framing that I get when shooting. I am very pleased with those compositional results when using these settings for street or event shooting.

Here are the original files if you want to take a peak (straight from camera card and uploaded to Flickr). Both were shot at 3200ISO:

Contrasty File

Lower Contrast File
 
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