B&W or colour?

1 - b&w
2 - color
3 - b&w

 

1: either
2: Colour
3: bw

 

Colour, colour, b/w

 

#1 Both look good. I would try to do a sepia tone on the B&W version and see what that looks like.
#2 The color is better but I think this is only because so many details were lost in the B&W. If you could bring back those details it might be great. You could also crop the B&W, turning it into a square, cut just above the arches. I do like the high contrast of the pillar top.
#3 B&W!

 

Colour, colour, b&w for me. Great shots BTW

 

color, color, b&w for me.

 

i find exactly the same in many of my results, so i take your inquiry more as a philosophical than specific instance issue. what ive done for years is shoot 'film bracketing' of color and b&w whenever cam lets me, or raw (color) + jpeg (b&w) whenever it doesnt. this allows me to always directly compare on download. when i cant decide, i keep both versions. imo, the more one does this the more they appreciate b&w.

 

I'd vote:

1. Color. B&W looks too flat.
2. B&W gives it some mystery.
3. Probably B&W.

 

C
B&w
Cut tweak the clouds to be more dramatic. Not vastly, just a touch

 

Id say it depends on what you wanted to emphasize. The 1st and 3rd photos really emphasize the texture when in black and white. The second photo, the sculptures at the head of the column really stand out in color, while the geometry of the whole image stands out in black and white. I think my preference would be #1 color, #2 color, #3 BW

 

1 + 2 loose their essence in B+W. 3 offers equally important perspectives.

 

1 - B/W. The color version shows the two lighting sources (daylight, here in blue, and what is probably incandecent) and it's distracting. Plus the church is an old place and goes fine with B/W
2 - definitely B/W. The B/W version takes away all the unessential parts and emphasizes the interesting details. You can look at the B/W version longer.
3 - neither. To my eyes the B/W clouds are overcooked and the color version is dull, and neither is at the level of the first two photos.

 

All color
The second looks just horrible in b&w and the third much grainier.
I'm not a b&w fan, after all the world is in color and if theirs no really really good artistic reason, why remove 2/3 of the info. It's kind of like only typing every third char, that makes the text more artistic but it doesn't improve its quality. If a photo is so bad, you need to convert it to b&w to make it special, it may be better to get rid of it. I very rarely see pictures where b&w is a good fit.

 

B&W is sometimes useful to salvage a shot with poor colors. It can reduce skin blemishes (with a digital red filter). It can also emphasize lines and shapes in a composition.

Your first two images are very good in color and they lose a lot in B&W.

The third image looks good in B&W because the contrast is higher, especially in the clouds. Also, frankly, the color version has the crappy old Panasonic greens. Sorry, the colors there are just not very pretty. You might be able to improve the colors in post-processing, or add contrast and drama to the sky without converting to B&W. Otherwise, the B&W treatment improves the shot.

 

I think pictures with lots of color changes or small pockets of colors look better in color than b&w.
And I personally like Panasonic greens.

 

I like them all three in B&W. I might do a bit more burning in number 1, make some parts at the top a bit darker. Right now I feel it would be too 'blonde' for my taste (but then I like all my B&W dark and moody :smile

 

+1