Many people say “never just shoot in black and white jpegs, you can never go back!” and of course, that always used to be true. However, generally, those of us who do shoot with intent, specifically for a black and white images are not really afraid of shooting in black and white because that is what our vision was.
However, as many of you know, I have a new (old) everyday carry camera that I use purposely for black and white images. One day this week, I just wanted to see how it would look in colour, using the tools we now have available to us.
Here is the original black and white images from my Lumix FS10 that I took.
I really liked this image. The only editing I made to the jpeg file was to slightly darken the foreground, drop the clarity of the water a little and slight dodge and burn of various parts of the image. Just our of curiosity, I thought I would use the latest tools to colourise it.
I really like the colourised version too! Thankfully, in this day and age there are a plethora of options to colourise your images, from the free Google Gemini, through to software like Adobe Photoshop and Luminar Neo.
Whatever you use, the idea behind this quick article is that you are not just stuck with your original black and white images anymore! So, feel free to shoot in black and white jpeg only if you really want to.
One Camera One Lens Photography 
Hey Mark, you know how some photos just refuse to behave, some don’t work in B&W, others fall flat in colour. The one you posted now is one of those rare cases that works beautifully in both, which makes it a perfect example to explain how I see it. Of course, it depends on the camera. If someone’s shooting an old compact without RAW support, the whole discussion ends right there. You can tint and tone a JPEG all you want, and I have to say, Mark, the colour version you made is genuinely excellent, but here’s the part that keeps puzzling me: if someone enjoys shooting B&W JPEGs so much, why not just record the RAW as well? If you come home and still don’t want to change your mind, you simply import the JPEGs and ignore the rest. Simple.
And circling back to your article from yesterday, and yes, I completely understand today’s article too, aren’t we basically telling the stubborn crowd out there: “Sure, shoot only JPEG and B&W if you must; we’ll figure out a way to save you later if you suddenly want something different”? Because to me, the correct answer to the question “I shot my JPEGs in B&W and now I want colour” is: next time, be smarter and shoot JPEG and RAW.
Don’t take it the wrong way, Mark. This isn’t aimed at you. It’s aimed at those hard-headed shooters out there. Your article is spot-on – and that colour reconstruction is excellent.
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Most of these old cameras don’t have raw support, or of course people would use it. But more importantly, colourising old black and white images is now so very easy.
It’s just great to see technology that now means you don’t need to worry what you shoot in.
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