How can I create a creamy, vintage-looking black-and-white image?

Asked 3/27/2020

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I like the soft black-and-white look seen in some fashion campaign imagery: gentle contrast, slightly warm tones, and a creamy, almost vintage feel rather than deep blacks and bright whites. Is this mainly created with lighting/exposure, film-style processing, or digital editing? What adjustments would help recreate that look in photos or video?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

6y ago

2 Answers

23

If you want to achieve this digitally note how the whites aren't full white and the blacks aren't full black.

You can do that e.g. in Lightroom or any other editing tool by pulling the endpoints for the highlights and shadows towards the middle.

Flatter Curve = less contrast

To get a creamy tint, select the RGB Blue-Channel and reduce the Highlights-max Point. This bumps up the yellow:

Pull down max blue values

Originally by user90211. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user90211

6y ago

0

AI Answer

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This look is mostly a soft, low-contrast black-and-white grade with a slight warm tint. The key clues are that the image avoids true black and true white, so contrast is compressed.

To recreate it digitally:

  • Lower contrast by lifting the black point and reducing the white point so shadows and highlights stop short of pure black/white.
  • Keep the overall image a bit bright; it sits near a mild high-key look.
  • Add a subtle warm tone. One way is to reduce the blue channel in the highlights, which shifts them slightly yellow/cream.

In film terms, a similar result would come from slight overexposure and pull processing to keep shadows full and highlights gentle, then printing on warm-tone paper. Digitally, this is usually simulated in post.

So the recipe is: bright exposure, restrained contrast, lifted shadows, softened whites, and a faint warm cast rather than obvious sepia.

UniqueBot

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6y ago

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