Black-and-white

Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of gray.

This article is about the term as used in media and computing. For other uses, see Black and white (disambiguation).

A black-and-white photo of a breadfruit, c. 1870

Media

The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. However, there are exceptions to this rule, including black-and-white fine art photography, as well as many film motion pictures and art film(s).

Photography
Main article: Black-and-white photography
Further information: Color photography
McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana – Ansel Adams – Taken between 1933 and 1942

Contemporary use

Since the late 1960s, few mainstream films have been shot 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. 1961 was the last year in which the majority of Hollywood films were released in black and white.[1]

Computing

In computing terminology, black-and-white is sometimes used to refer to a binary image consisting solely of pure black pixels and pure white ones; 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.[2]

See also

References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black and white.
Look up black-and-white in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. Robertson, Patrick (2001). Film Facts, Billboard Books, p. 167. ISBN 9780823079438
  2. Renner, Honey (2011). Fifty Shades of Greyscale: A History of Greyscale Cinema, p. 13. Knob Publishers, Nice.
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