As someone who learned photography in the Age of Analog, I often find myself cringing when I see those who have only ever known digital, under-utilizing the power of black and white with the quick click of the grayscale button. Their images can be so much more than the general gray blahness that just the unrefined desaturation command can do.
In school, we were held to the standards of The Zone System; a method developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. It was our constant benchmark of a dynamic exposure. And when one has a dynamic exposure, you can’t help but be interested in the image. While the scale was originally developed for black and white analog film, and later used with color film, we can still apply its basic ideals to bump our digital black and whites to the next level.
An Overview of The Zone System:
Adams & Archer cemented the principles of The Zone System in the late 1920s & early 1930s. They were looking to reduce the amount of guesswork with their exposures so that they could capture more consistent results that more accurately represented the scene in front of their cameras. The system, once mastered, would also provide an easy and foolproof guide for creatively & intentionally over or underexposing an image as well. There are 11 steps in the scale:
0 – Pure Black
I – Near black, slight tonality but no texture
II – Textured Black, the darkest part of the image in which slight detail is recorded
III – Average dark materials that show adequate texture
IV – Average dark foliage, dark stone, or landscape shadows
V – Middle Gray; clear north sky; dark skin; average weathered wood
VI – Average medium tone skin, shadows in snow in sunlit landscapes
VII – Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII – The lightest tone with texture, textured snow
IX – Slight tone without texture, glaring snow
X – Pure white; light sources & specular reflections/flare
Applying the Zone System in Weddings:
In many situations with photography & applying the zone system, you have to interpret colors into zone values. It takes some practice and after being off by a stop or two, eventually you get really good at it. So isn’t it nice of weddings to make things super easy on you by providing you with foolproof values of VIII & III? Of course Im talking about the wedding dress and the tuxedo! Its genius! Whenever I edit wedding photos, I always strive to keep my dresses in zone VII & VIII. By doing that, I ensure that all those subtle little details (that the bride paid a pretty penny for, I might add) are still celebrated in the image. Similarly, by striving to keep the average black tux in Zone II & III, I ensure that my grooms don’t end up looking like heads floating on black, boxy blobs (or a guy in a faded, dusty old tux).
How I Apply It:
My absolutely favorite program to edit black & whites in is (the recently purchased by Google) NIK Software Silver Efex Pro plugin. It work for PS, Lightroom, and Aperture and does a spectacular job helping you to coax every bit of development out of that RAW image as Adams did in his darkroom processing techniques.
While you’re in Silver Efex Pro fiddling (and boy are there a lot of ways to fiddle!) you can check your progress with each zone in the loupe area. When you mouse over the area of the loupe & histogram in Silver Efex Pro, you’ll actually see The Zone System Scale pop up from 0-10. Roll over each number and colored shading will appear on your image that corresponds to each zone. Its brilliant! Now I can easily double check that I am including all the tonalities in my image; making sure the dress isn’t just flat white and that I have the appropriate shadow depth to really make those highlights sing. As an added bonus, you’ll be pleased to note that when you employ these Zone System principles in your editing, you’ll find details and textures in your images you may never have known existed!
Lisa is a Washington, D.C. based wedding & portrait photographer with and check her blog for more of her work.
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I so need to learn and implement this system, I knew the functionality was there just unsure exactly how to use it. Thanks for getting me started though!
Thank you. Someone else just mentioned this to me and I’m trying to improve my B&W…since I just started and have taken like 5 in my life lol. But this is very informative.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Great tips!
Kudos on this article Lisa! I was also trained back in the day with a BFA double major in photography and painting, and when I see the photos being produced by ‘professional’ photographers who are clueless of the zone, it makes me cringe too.
I have to try this software out. I end up dodging and burning to get the desired results, which is far too time consuming–especially editing a wedding!
Is there a way to implement this system using Adobe Lightroom?
Not really… the Silver Efex Pro and Tiffen DFX packages support this workflow
Thank you for your reply!
Just got the Nik software package from Google and the Silver Efex Pro had a bug but there is a fix to download to use with PS6. This article has got me motivated to download the upgrade and try again.
The photo of the Silver Efex plug-in is a little small. What are you supposed to see and edit? (even seeing the zones)
Download the demo and try it.
Arne,
Each Zone is represented with hash lines of different colors. Some are light blue, light green, red, yellow, etc. It is a bit difficult to see in web resolution, but in the software it will be very apparent. Like Rich said, try it out! It’s really fun software.
I so need to learn and implement this system, I knew the functionality was there just unsure exactly how to use it. Thanks for getting me started though!
Thank you. Someone else just mentioned this to me and I’m trying to improve my B&W…since I just started and have taken like 5 in my life lol. But this is very informative.
Kudos on this article Lisa! I was also trained back in the day with a BFA double major in photography and painting, and when I see the photos being produced by ‘professional’ photographers who are clueless of the zone, it makes me cringe too.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Great tips!
I have to try this software out. I end up dodging and burning to get the desired results, which is far too time consuming–especially editing a wedding!
The photo of the Silver Efex plug-in is a little small. What are you supposed to see and edit? (even seeing the zones)
Arne,
Each Zone is represented with hash lines of different colors. Some are light blue, light green, red, yellow, etc. It is a bit difficult to see in web resolution, but in the software it will be very apparent. Like Rich said, try it out! It’s really fun software.
Download the demo and try it.
Just got the Nik software package from Google and the Silver Efex Pro had a bug but there is a fix to download to use with PS6. This article has got me motivated to download the upgrade and try again.
Is there a way to implement this system using Adobe Lightroom?
Not really… the Silver Efex Pro and Tiffen DFX packages support this workflow
Thank you for your reply!