Have you ever looked at black & white photographs taken on film and wondered why they seem to have far more depth than your digital black & white conversions? If your digitally produced black & white shots appear flat and uninteresting, it’s almost undoubtedly down to a lack of contrast. In this guide, I’m going to teach you all about contrast and how you can apply it to your black & white images. Let’s get started.
WHAT IS CONTRAST?
Put very simply, contrast is the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks, with all the shades of gray in between. One of the best ways to learn more about contrast is to familiarise yourself with Ansel Adams' Zone System. To summarize, Adams worked out a chart that runs from zone 1 to zone 9. Zone 1 is pure black, whilst zone 9 is pure white. In the middle, you have zone 5, which equates to 18% gray (halfway between pure white and pure black). This is
