[Leica] Query re B&W photography in digital

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

I re-read what I posted, and it's obvious I wasn't clear.

So:

You can't achieve most filter effects in post processing. That is it.




You can approach many subtle effects, and effects 
that have similar results to filtering exactly 
the same colours as the Bayer pattern filters, 
but no more than that. No sharp cutoff filters 
can be emulated to any useful degree; no strong 
filters of whatever colour. You have to filter 
before the light hits the sensor, or film.

That is why there is this whole mess with the 
IR/UV cutoff filters on the M8; there is no way 
to really handle this in post processing. Once 
the wrong information hits a certain sensor 
element, it can't be distinguished from the other 
information. Remember, sensor elements are only 
buckets that collect photons; all the information 
that the sensor element reports is the number of 
photons, not the wavelength that it came in on.

If you want strong filter effects, good colour 
balance from 2000?K scenes, polarizer effects - 
use a filter. You can't get the effects through 
post processing.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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