About Black and White Photography
Feeling in Black and White
It’s not the camera. It’s not the lens. It’s not the film or the processing. It’s not a spectrum, a shade, a shoulder or a toe. It’s not your curve, your filter or even the light. It’s not contrast or plugged-up darks or dynamic range. It’s not a filter, a recipe or a preset. It’s not Magnum, LIFE or Ansel Adams, either. It’s not high key or low key.
It’s nothing outside yourself. It’s nothing you hold in your hands. It’s not about your eyes anymore.
Black and white is everything you hold in your heart. Complicated love, unrelenting fear, obscured understanding, pain and sorrow and hope and sex — in its rawest form. Just blacks, just white. Simple and treacherous.
The Presets
These are the last black and white presets you'll ever need. 17 total presets covering the entire tonal range and exploration of black and white conversions, through the careful fine-tuned adjustments of a fine artist.
Josh S. Rose is a professional photographer. Leica Akademie Instructor, winner of the Spider Awards Top Honors in Black and White Fine Art Photography and Top Writer on Photography on Medium.
"Dude, these are amazing. I pressed one button and it was perfect. Thank you!"
TODD G / PHOTOGRAPHER / LOS ANGELES
About the Presets
Inspired by the Poets
Each preset is named after (and inspired by) a modern poet. They include: Arthur Rimbaud, Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Bukowski, e e cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickenson, Ezra Pound, Fernando Pessoa, Frank O'Hara, Langston Hughes, Robert Creeley, Sylvia Plath, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams.
 William Carlos Williams |  Walt Whitman |  Wallace Stevens |
|---|---|---|
 Arthur Rimbaud |  Ezra Pound |  Rainer Maria Rilke |
 Edgar Allan Poe |  Plath |  Fernando Pessoa |
 Frank O'Hara |  Charles Bukowski |  Langston Hughes |
 Emily Dickenson |  T S Eliot |  W H Auden |
 Robert Creeley |  e e cummings |
A Better Way
To Process
"As an artist, my process for converting an image is less about tonal range and contrast and more about emotion. I prefer to cycle through different processing looks and be inspired by what that experience yields. The right set of presets can actually help you in your creative process. That's why I'm selling these as a set. These 17 B&W presets are exactly the ones I use to get my ideas of how I want a photo session to look. Every image you see of mine went through this exact process, with these same presets."
- JSR
