When I started photography it was just film. Black and white was easiest and even more important at that time: cheaper. It was incredible to think you could see you photos instantly, unless you had a Polaroid camera, but the quality and size of the pictures did not compair to film. So it took a long time before you saw your pictures and.... what you did wrong.
I love digital photography. You can see immediately what you did wrong and often have a second chance of taking a correct picture. At least I. I often first shoot and then look if I had the right settings. Somehow I cannot bring myself to doing that the other way around. I made black and white pictures in the time of film and continued doing so when I got my first digital camera. The color pictures were the holiday snapshots, but the real ones where the black and white ones.
But that changed when I got into nature photography. Sure clouds can make great black and white pictures, but they can be even greater in color. Especially if you worked on them with programs to enhance the images. After Photoshop became a subscription I switched to GIMP that is available for Windows too and the NIK filters from Google.
For Linux there is Darktable, also available for Windows. So without switching to Linux you can first try the program to see what it can do for your pictures. The NIK filters are great, but I can do without them with Darktable.
In the gallery below are some pictures as an example.
