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I am fond of B/W photography. I have a Canon DSLR (60D). I was checking out some black and white photos and I came up with some photos taken by Fujifilm Camera. The color is amazing. Does anyone know how I can take these nice old looking photos with my own camera without doing any post processing?

But I'm pretty sure if this photo had been taken with a canon it would've been like the following photo:

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  • \$\begingroup\$ By "offset color" do you mean the raised black point? (That is, there are no pure blacks?) And, your "Canon" example is simply made by taking that and increasing the contrast, right? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, That's exactly what I mean. \$\endgroup\$
    – SERAJ
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ Would "How can I get a look like Fujifilm's black and white mode out of my Canon DSLR?" be an accurate restatement of the question? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ Or, "Can I get out-of-camera JPEGs with a raised black point from my Canon DSLR?" \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ Raised or lifted black point :) \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:35

3 Answers 3

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I think there is a missconception of post processing.

Adjusting Camera settings is doing a post process but not done by yourself, but the camera.

I don't imagine a camera that renders a black as that one in its raw file.

I think there is a need to have "pure photography", which is good. But you most likley don't have that in a digital world. You also had other options to manipulate film photography in the old days, with different tools and film selection.

There is a chance that photo looks that gray if the file is a grayscale image (not rgb) and the color modes of the aplication are converting that to a k channel in a cmyk output... And making an rgb output again. In that case you did not manipulated any curves by yourself either.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I mean the dark point. The Leica M has a higher tonal range on the dark side. But still it has a black point. That is diferent than the example above. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rafael
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 13:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ Sorry, I misread your post. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alberto
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 9:25
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If your camera supported custom tone curves, you'd be able to get a similar result to this straight out of camera. Unfortunately, yours doesn't, so your only option is post-processing.

There are many ways one would get this effect in post.

  • Basic levels adjustment - put the black point output as a value above 0 using a levels control or similar in Photoshop, other editors, or your RAW software.

  • Use a curves control and have the leftmost point of the curve not go all the way down to the bottom axis.

  • Use a gradient map, and choose your off-white and off-black colors as the gradient. This would offer the flexibility of giving a color cast, and also letting your black point and white point have slightly different color casts.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ All of these will work. If you don't have Photoshop, look at GIMP.org for free software. \$\endgroup\$
    – Aaron
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 3:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Or RawTherapee for raw procesing. \$\endgroup\$
    – Steve Barnes
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 14:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ 60D can't do custom curves, but you can create custom Picture Styles... \$\endgroup\$
    – inkista
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 15:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ Unfortunately those don't give you enough control to do something like this. But they are indeed useful. \$\endgroup\$
    – thomasrutter
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 0:17
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Your best would be to find a PictureStyle that fits your needs.

There's a QuickGuide to Picture Style Settings and Customization pdf that will get you started. It is from the Canon Digital Learning Center.(http://usa.canon.com/dlc)

I'd like to quote from this article that's about the adjsutments specific to your camera in the following:

  1. Find the Picture Style menu List item
  2. Scroll down to User Def. 1 and hit the button enter image description here
  3. choose a base picture style, in your case Monochrome seems to be the best option enter image description here

  4. Play around with the parameters:

    • Sharpness Adjusts the sharpness of the image: To make it less sharp, set it towards the [0] end. The closer it is to [0],the softer the image will look.To make it sharper, set it towards the [7] end. The closer it is to [7], the sharper the image will look.
    • Contrast Adjusts the image contrast and the vividness of colors: To decrease the contrast, set it towards the minus end. The closer it is to [-], the blander the image will look. To increase the contrast, set it towards the plus end. The closer it is to [+], the crisper the image will look.
    • Saturation The image’s color saturation can be adjusted: To decrease the color saturation, set it towards the minus end. The closer it is to [-], the more diluted the colors will look. To increase the color saturation, set it towards the plus end. The closer it is to [+], the bolder the colors will look.
    • Color tone The skin tones can be adjusted: To make the skin tone redder, set it towards the minus end. The closer it is to [-], the redder the skin tone will look. To make the skin tone less red, set it towards the plus end. The closer it is to [+], the more yellow the skin tone will look.

    I think that lowering the contrast will bring you closest to what you want.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah So close but no cigar :). Thank you \$\endgroup\$
    – SERAJ
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 0:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SERAJ the problem is your requirement of without doing any post processing You have to realise that this is totally unrealistic. Pretty much every picture that you see in public is heavily edited. This is why everybody shoots raw: it provides more freedom and possibilities when editing. The unmodified raw images themselves often look worse then jpeg out of camera, because there's no sharpening, noise reduction, contrast enhancement, saturation, .... applied whatsoever. \$\endgroup\$
    – null
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 14:03

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