How did you make peace with Digital B&W?

odd. I feel the opposite of most. I would prefer to shoot film for both color and B&W, but if I had to do one digital, I'd rather do the B&W digitally and keep the color from shooting chromes. Not that I don't get good results with digital color, but I find images I make with KodaChrome or E100VS have a certain look that is hard for me to duplicate with digital.
 
I am full on film for B+W. I have seen some very nice work in B+W digital that reminds me that it is the photographer not the camera. On a screen it can be more difficult to see the difference. One thing that REALLY turned me off to digital B+W was the grain add on in LR and photoshop.....not for me!

I will admit the bias is not full founded in reality. I wet print but the vast majoity of my work is scanned, then messed with in LR then put on line or printed. Not reall that different :)

The b+W process is what i enjoy.....

Color I avoid unless it is MF or X pan. I will shoot some chromes in the m6 but not many. Funny enough the M8 has not impacted my color shooting much at all. My original plan was to use it for 35mm color. I find myself using it more like a very nice P+S..not a great use of my money and i am considering sellng it in favor of a G11 or some such.
 
You certainly can make digital prints with controlled highlights and nice tonality. And when you use a coated rag paper or linen canvas, the result can be quite stunning (especially when framed and seen from viewing distance).

My problem is, the road that you have to endure to get it is nowhere near as satisfying compared to working in the darkroom.

And the fact that you can crank 100 copies of the exact print ruins the "artwork" factor in which (in my mind) uniqueness plays a significant role.
 
I'm very intrigued by the advances being made to aid in producing high quality b&w images. Software is coming along quite nicely (e.g.: Nik's Silver Efex Pro). Printing papers are moving ahead as well.. its nice to see new niche manufacturers producing new paper styles. And I'm planning on looking at the pros and cons of having a dedicated b&w printer that uses carbon inks. And the dynamic range of modern digital sensors is quickly approaching film's technical capability (but its so close now that it doesn't really matter any more).

I have no doubts that very high quality b&w 'digital' prints will soon be unrecognizable from silver prints to all but those that insist on weighing the print to see how much silver was used. :)

I had to drop out of photography for many years when I no longer had access to darkroom space and had no time to maintain a darkroom. Now I'm back because I can edit and print anytime I get a spare hour or so. And I don't have to worry about my daughter being in proximity with the toxic chemicals. If I was still living the bachelor's life, I'd probably still be loving the 'darkroom rat's' life. But those days are long gone.
 
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