Black-and-white
Encyclopedia
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
forms in visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
.
Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray
Grayscale
In photography and computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample, that is, it carries only intensity information...
. Further, many prints, especially those produced earlier in the development of photography, were in sepia (mainly to provide archival stability), which gave a richer, more subtle shading
Shading
Shading refers to depicting depth perception in 3D models or illustrations by varying levels of darkness.-Drawing:Shading is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter...
than reproductions in plain black-and-white, although less so than color.
Media
Some popular black-and-white media of the past include:- MoviesFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and animated cartoonCartoonA cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s. While some color film processes (including hand coloring) were experimented with and in limited use from the earliest days of the motion picture, the switch from most films being in black-and-white to most being in color was gradual, taking place from the 1930s to the 1960s. Even when most studios had the capability to make color films, they were not heavily utilized as tinting techniques and the TechnicolorTechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
process were expensive and difficult. For years color films were not capable of rendering realistic hues, thus mostly historical films or musicals were made in color and many directors preferred to use black-and-white stock. For the years 1940–1966 a separate Academy Award for Best Art DirectionAcademy Award for Best Art DirectionThe Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
was given for black-and-white movies, along with one for color. - PhotographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
was black-and-white or shades of sepia. Color photographyColor photographyColor photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors, which are traditionally produced chemically during the photographic processing phase...
was originally rare and expensive, and again often less than true to life. Color photography became more common in the middle of the 20th century, and has become even more common since. Black-and-white remains a niche market for photographers who use the medium for artistic purposes. This can take the form of black-and-white film or digital conversion to grayscale, with optional digital image editing manipulation to enhance the results. For amateur use, certain companies such as Kodak manufactured black-and-white disposable cameraDisposable cameraThe disposable or single-use camera is a simple box camera sold with a roll of film installed, meant to be used once. Most use fixed-focus lenses. Some are equipped with an integrated flash unit, and there are even waterproof versions for underwater photography...
s until 2009. Also, certain films are produced today which give black-and-white images using the ubiquitous C41 color process. - TelevisionTelevisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
programmingTelevision programA television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
was first broadcastBroadcastBroadcast or Broadcasting may refer to:* Broadcasting, the transmission of audio and video signals* Broadcast, an individual television program or radio program* Broadcast , an English electronic music band...
in black-and-white. Several Japanese electronics manufacturers in 1969, standardized the first format for industrial/non-broadcast videotape recorders (VTRs) called EIAJ-1EIAJ-1EIAJ-1, developed by the Electronic Industries Association of Japan in 1969, was the first standardized format for industrial/non-broadcast videotape recorders...
Some color broadcasts in the USA began in the 1950s, with color becoming common in western industrialized nations during the late 1960s and then standard in the 1970s. In the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications CommissionThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) settled on a color NTSCNTSCNTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
standard in 1953, and the NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
network began broadcasting a limited color televisionColor televisionColor television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
schedule in January, 1954. Color television became more widespread in the U.S. between 1963 and 1967, when the CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
networks joined NBC in broadcasting full color schedules. CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
began airing color television in 1966 while the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
established an entirely color system in November 1969 known as PALPALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
. New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
began color broadcasting in 1973, and AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
kept airing black-and-white broadcasts until 1975. While no longer used professionally, many consumer camcorderCamcorderA camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s have the ability to record in black-and-white. - Most newspapers were black-and-white until the late 1970s; The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
remained in black-and-white until the 1990s. Some claim that USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
was the major impetus for the change to color. In the UK, color was only slowly introduced from the mid 1980s. Even today, many newspapers restrict color photographs to the front and other prominent pages since mass producing photographs in black-and-white is considerably less expensive than color. Similarly, daily comic stripsDaily stripA daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
in newspapers were traditionally black-and-white with color reserved for Sunday stripSunday stripA Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
s. - Color printing has traditionally been more expensive. Sometimes color is reserved for the cover. Magazines such as JetJet (magazine)Jet is an American weekly marketed toward African-American readers, founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois...
magazine was either all or mostly black-and-white until the end of the 20th century, when it became all-color. MangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
(Japanese or Japanese-influenced comics) are typically published in black-and-white although now it is part of its image. School yearbookYearbookA yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...
s are still entirely or mostly in black-and-white.
Modern use of Black-and-White
Since the advent of color, black-and-white mass mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
often connotes something "nostalgic", historic, or anachronistic
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
. For example, the 1998 Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
film Celebrity
Celebrity (film)
Celebrity is a 1998 comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. The screenplay focuses on the divergent paths a couple takes following their divorce.-Plot:...
was shot entirely in black-and-white, and Allen has often made use of the practice since Manhattan
Manhattan (film)
Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress...
in 1979. Other films, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, American History X
American History X
American History X is a 1998 American drama film directed by Tony Kaye and starring Edward Norton and Edward Furlong. It was distributed by New Line Cinema....
and Pleasantville
Pleasantville (film)
Pleasantville is a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Marley Shelton and Jeff Daniels. Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Jane Kaczmarek, and J. T. Walsh are also featured.The film...
play with the concept of the black-and-white anachronism, using it to selectively portray scenes and characters who are either more outdated or dull than the characters and scenes shot in full-color. This manipulation of color appears in the film Sin City
Sin City (film)
Sin City, also known as Frank Miller's Sin City, is a 2005 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
and the occasional television commercial. Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
' 1987 film Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress...
uses sepia-tone black-and-white for the scenes shot from the angels' perspective. When Damiel, the angel (the film's main character), becomes a human, the film changes to color emphasising his new "real life" view of the world.
Since the late 1960s, few mainstream films have been shot entirely in black-and-white. The reasons are frequently commercial, as it is difficult to sell a film for television broadcasting if the film is not in color. Monochrome film stock
Film stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
is rarely used at the time of shooting, even if the films are intended to be presented theatrically in black-and-white. Movies such as John Boorman
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
's The General
The General (1998 film)
The General is a British-Irish crime film directed by John Boorman about Dublin crime boss Martin Cahill, who pulled off several daring heists in the early 1980s, and attracted the attention of the Gardaí, PIRA, and UVF. The film was shot in 1997 and released in 1998...
and Joel Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Man Who Wasn't There is a 2001 neo-noir film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Billy Bob Thornton stars in the title role. Also featured are James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Alexi-Malle and Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, and Jon...
were obliged to be filmed in color by their respective crews, despite being presented in black-and-white for artistic reasons. Clerks
Clerks
Clerks is a 1994 independent comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also appears in the film as Silent Bob. Starring Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves, it presents a day in the lives of two store clerks and their acquaintances...
is one of the few well-known recent films shot in black-and-white for no artistic purpose; because of the extremely low out-of-pocket budget
Out-of-pocket expenses
Out-of-pocket expenses are direct outlays of cash which may or may not be later reimbursed.In operating a vehicle, gasoline, parking fees and tolls are considered out-of-pocket expenses for the trip...
, the production team could not afford the added costs of shooting in color (though the difference in film stock price would be slight, the store's fluorescent lights could not be used to light for color; by shooting in black and white, the film-makers did not have to rent lighting equipment).
Some modern film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
s will occasionally shoot movies in black and white as an artistic choice, though it is much less common for a major Hollywood production. This is also true of black-and-white photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, where many photographers choose to shoot in solely black and white, since the stark contrasts enhance the subject matter. For example, the movie π is filmed in entirely black and white, with a grainy effect until the end.
Some formal photo portraits still use black-and-white. Many visual-art photographers use black-and-white in their work.
Computing
Most computerComputer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s had monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
(black-and-white, black and green, or black and amber
Amber (color)
Amber is an orange-yellow color that got its name from the material known as amber. Due to this, amber can refer not to one but to a series of shades of orange, since the natural material varies from nearly yellow when newer to orange or reddish-orange when older.-Amber:Amber is a pure chroma color...
) screens until the late 1980s; however, some home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s could be connected to television screens to eliminate the extra cost of a monitor. These took advantage of NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
or PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
encoding to offer a range of colors from as low as 4 (IBM CGA
Color Graphics Adapter
The Color Graphics Adapter , originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card, and the first color computer display standard for the IBM PC....
) to 128 (Atari 800) to 4096 (Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
). Early videogame consoles such as the Atari Video Computer System/VCS/2600 supported both black-and-white and color modes via a switch, as did some of the early home computers; this was to accommodate black-and-white TV sets which would display a color signal poorly. (Typically a different shading scheme would be used for the display in the black-and-white mode.)
In computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
terminology, black-and-white is sometimes used to refer to a binary image
Binary image
A binary image is a digital image that has only two possible values for each pixel. Typically the two colors used for a binary image are black and white though any two colors can be used. The color used for the object in the image is the foreground color while the rest of the image is the...
consisting solely of pure black pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s and pure white pixels; what would normally be called a black-and-white image, that is, an image containing shades of gray, is referred to in this context as grayscale
Grayscale
In photography and computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample, that is, it carries only intensity information...
.
See also
- dr5Dr5dr5, or dr5 Chrome, is a reversal black-and-white process, via which most kinds of black-and-white negative films produce transparencies . It was developed by David Wood, CEO and proprietor of dr5 Chrome Lab, a photographer turned photographic chemist...
- List of post-1960s films in black-and-white
- Monochromatic colorMonochromatic colorMonochromatic colors are all the colors of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a single base hue, and extended using its shades, tones and tints Monochromatic colors are all the colors (tints, tones, and shades) of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a...
- Selective colorSelective colorSelective color is a post-processing technique where most of a photo is converted to black and white, but some parts are left in color. This is usually achieved by using layers and masks in photo editing software .A common application for selective color is portraiture, to keep the eyes and...