Black and White Photos Do I Need to Buy Color Filters?

[Bill In Tucson]

I am tempted to buy color filters (e.g. orange #16) but wanted ask if Affinity Photo could process a raw image taken without a filter to give me the same effect. If yes, what is the process and how do I know parameters to adjust for a given filter (e.g. orange, red, yellow etc?)

[Komatös]

Hi, @Bill In Tucson and welcome to the forum. 

Your intention can be achieved quite well with LUTs. A search on the internet should provide you with suitable results.

For example: https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=LUTs für Affinity Photo free&segment=startpage.vivaldi

[h_d]

As I understand it, raw files are always saved in colour, and even if you set your camera to shoot in monochrome (.jpg format), the resulting image will almost certainly be saved in an RGB colour space.

Affinity Photo will convert such images to true greyscale, but there are no specific settings or adjustments to replicate colour filters. There are various adjustments - for example Levels and Curves - that may get you the effect that you want, but would need a fair bit of experimentation.

It's also quite possible that colour filter settings are available in-camera. Certainly on my Panasonic GX-9 I can set up to shoot monochrome and apply red, orange, yellow and green 'filter effects'. How closely they correspond to a physical filter with black-and-white film I'm not really qualified to say.

I would say if you want to get the true effect of an orange filter, then buy one, shoot 'pseudo-monochrome', and then use Affinity Photo to convert your images to true greyscale. An alternative might be to buy (at some cost) a dedicated monochrome effects program like Silver Efex Pro.

 

[v_kyr]

Hmm, I think you can only nearly simulate a B&W orange filter via software, a possible way to try is via ChannelMixer settings. But you probably won't get exactly what a physical B&W orange filter will produce instead here.

An easier way of simulating a B&W orange filters via software might be, to use some plugin which works in APh, like from the NIK Collection then "NIK Silver Efex Pro", which offers a bunch of B&W simulated filters and the like. There have been free Google times versions of "NIK Silver Efex Pro" which should or hopefully still work with APh.

[R C-R]

Probably not what you want but AP does have a Lens Filter adjustment that for a quick & dirty adjustment might work if you can set its color to something that approximates the color of the real thing.

Of course, the real filter is intended to increase contrast in B&W photos so if that is what you want it for there may be simpler ways to do that, possibly using just a B&W adjustment layer.

[Bill In Tucson]

Thank all of you for your observations and suggestions.  I am very new to using software with this level of sophistication. I've also just purchased a new camera (D780) that is also much more advanced than anything I've used in the past. I wasn't familiar with LUTs and looking at the online videos I can see that they offer a myriad of possibilities. I'll probably start with the suggestion made by v_kyr and experiment with the channel mixer and R C-R's reference to the Lens Filter adjustment. I'm also following up on h_d's comment about capability already built into the camera. Lots of videos to watch, thanks again. (I did find a link to download the free version of the NIK Collection) Cheers!

[v_kyr]

In case others are looking for the older Google times NIK Collection, here are two links for those from two computer magazines (both offer the Mac & Win version downloads).

• Google NIK Collection (Mac)
• Google NIK Collection (Win)
• NIK Collection PS Plug-ins (Mac or Win)

[Bill In Tucson]

Very good v_kyr, thanks for posting that.