Black and White Conversion, in Photoshop

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Category: Tutorials

Published on Monday, 24 November 2008 09:22

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Black and White Conversion, in Photoshop

Here are some notes for converting images to black and white in Photoshop, as discussed by Steve recently. A few other tips are also included.

 

Black and White Conversion - Method 1

 

1. Open a photo.

2. From the file menu choose Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 2

1. Open a photo.

2. Create a Black and White adjustment layer. From the file menu click Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White.

   The Black and White dialog appears.

    

3. Adjust the sliders to brighten or darken particular colours.

   Example: To enhance a blue sky from a mid grey to a dark tone, adjust the blue slider.

   Tip: Click in the image and, holding the left mouse button, drag left to darken or right to lighten.

   The image is converted to black and white.
   

Black and White Conversion - Method 3

1. Open a photo.

2. Create a new layer. (From the file menu click: Layer > New Layer).

3. Fill layer with black.

   The image is hidden by the black layer.

4. With the new layer selected, change the Blend Mode to Colour.

 

The image is converted to black and white.

 

Black and White Conversion - Method 4

1. Open a photo.

2. Open Calculations. (From the file menu clickImage > Calculations.)

3. Set the source 1 and source 2 channels to: Red*. Set the Blending to Multiply. (*Experiment with different channels and blend modes to get the tones you want).

    

   The image is converted to black and white.

More detail: In this case, Calculations multiplies the pixel values in the two channels selected and divides the result by 255. The resulting color is always a darker color.

Tip: If you choose New Document as the Result you can create a open a new document with the image resulting from the calculation.

 

Black and White Conversion - Method 5

1. Open a photo.

2. Change the colour mode to LAB mode (From the file menu choose: Image > Mode > Lab Color).

3. In the Channels palette, choose lightness layer. (Turning off channels A and B.)

                   

The image is converted to black and white.

 

Black and White Conversion - Method 6

1. Open a photo.

2. Open Channel Mixer. (From the file menu choose: Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer.

    

3. Tick the Monochrome box (to set the output).

The image is converted to black and white.

 

 Black and White Conversion - Method 7

1. Open a photo.

2. In the Channels palette, show and hide each of the red, green and blue channels. Choose one.

3. Copy the colour channel (red, green, or blue) into a new layer.

Tip: Click Ctrl+Shift+N (Windows) to open a new layer.
The image is converted to black and white.

 

Adding contrast – Using levels to set the black and white point levels
With an open photo,

1. Open the Levels dialog. (From the file menu choose Image > Adjustments > Levels)

2. Move the left marker to the start of the histogram, and the right marker to the end.

     

   Adjust the center marker to lighten or darken the midtones.

   Tip: Hold down the Alt key (Windows) while adjusting the levels markers, to show the any clipped highlights or shadows.

 

Miscellaneous Tips

• Use Adjustment Layers to seperate your edits from the original photo layer, to allow for easy tweaking.

•  If you are creating a black and white image from a raw file, open a 16bit image (rather than 8bit) to retain much more dynamic range when the colour data is flattened to greyscale.

To correct a colour cast
With an open image,

1. Choose Image > Adjustments > Photo Filter.

2. Choose the opposite colour on the colour wheel as the Filter. Example: to correct a green cast, choose a magenta filter.

See below diagram for primary and secondary colour wheel. If you want to correct a yellow cast, you can apply a blue filter, the opposite colour.

 

 

 

 

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