Renlish

Converting Colour to Black and White, the Cool Way.

In the Beginning, God (in this case, Adobe) created Photoshop. And on the seventh day, He edited his photographs in Photoshop and was pleased; for they were good.   And on that day, He bade his subjects go out into the world and teach.

“Lead my people home!”

And that’s when Ren decided she knew everything… and so the story continues.

This is a demonstration of how I create most of my black and white images. I’m presuming you know about layers and adjustment layers however if you don’t, either look up a tutorial ot two – there’s heaps online – or just head on up into your Layer menu in Photoshop and start playing. It’s easy. Don’t be afraid. Go now. I’ll wait…

While we’re waiting, I’ll say many, many thanks to Tam for the use of her lovely face and apologise unreservedly for any offense or boredom that may be caused. Please note, there are umptymillion ways of getting a single result in Photoshop for just about anything you want to do. This is just one method of creating black and white images – there are heaps that I’ve discovered but this is my favourite so far.

Ok, onto the tutorial.

But first, some general stuff that Ren doesn’t like.

Ren doesn’t like people who just use the Desaturate option.  Yep. Yank the colour out. It’s black and white now. Right?

WRONG!

More often than not, it’s grey and grey.  No tone. No depth. Nothing.

Even worse… Ren doesn’t like people who Greyscale their images.  Like the Desaturation, it’s grey. Grey, grey, grey, grey. Only flatter.

Sometimes the flat grey works, other times it really, really doesn’t.

Example:

A simple conversion to greyscale means that the image is flat tones of grey.  It’s soft and can be pretty on some lighter images and if you like it, more power to you, but I don’t.

Using Desaturation is slightly better than greyscale. There’s a bit more tone but because it’s just had the colour pulled out, many tones that were different colours are now mashing into each other, still giving that flat, dark appearance. Again, straight desaturation may work for some images. I rarely think it does and prefer to spend a few minutes more on photos I really like.

Here’s the photo after I’ve converted it to black and white my way:

I think it’s better. There’s tone, definition, contrast and it’s definitely black and white.  And here’s how I do it…

Once you’ve done all your pre-post-processing (before you decided to make it black and white, that is) we’re going to play with the Channel Mixer.  The Channel Mixer is a fabulous tool which is not only excellent for adjusting colours but tone in black and white.

Select Layer (top menu) – New Adjustment Layer – Channel Mixer.

You will get a “New Layer” dialogue box as the program will be adding the adjustment on a separate layer (this is where an understanding of how adjustment layers work comes in handy).  Name this layer B&W Conversion, or something to that effect, like so:

Click OK on that and then you are presented with the Channel Mixer dialogue box as pictured below.  Check the Monochrome box to to do the basic conversion to black and white then, and here’s the bit where you get creative, play with the sliders.  Please be aware that even while your image looks black and white, Photoshop will still be accessing the red, green and blue values of the image to make the adjustment.

Tip: Red represents your darkest tones.  Pull this slider back for dramatic shadows and use the green and blue to balance out your highlights.

The image below shows the settings I was happy with.  Once you’re happy with what you’ve done, hit OK. You should have an image that’s fairly dark in the shadows but with some contrast without highlights being blown out.

How’s it looking? A little better than Greyscale and Desaturation, I hope!

Alright, next step!

Have a cup of tea and congratulate yourself for getting this far.  You can also take a peek at your Layers palette (if you can’t see your Layers palette, go to Windows – Layers or hit F7).  You’ll see your original photo, still in colour at the bottom, with a new layer sitting over the top. Toggle the visibility button to turn it off.

Then on.

Then off.

Then on.

Then off.

Then on.  We need it on.

Then make a new Adjustment Layer!  (Surprise!)

This time we’re going to adjust the Levels a bit.  Levels are cool. They let you mess around with the highlights, midtones and shadows a bit more.

Again, go to Layers – New Adjustment Layer – Levels.  You’ll get another new layer dialogue box up, just call it whatever and hit OK.

Now, with the Levels, it’s good if you can understand histograms. If you’re an experienced photographer used to using histograms, this is very familiar. If not, just trust Ren, she’ll take care of you.

Play with the sliders.  If you think the highlights should be a little brighter, pull the right slider in towards the middle a bit.  If you think the shadows should be deeper, pull the left slider in a bit, if you think the tones between the highlights and the shadows should be lighter or darker, move the middle slider towards either side.  The following image shows what I was happy with for my image.  Hit OK when you’re happy too.

If you’re happy and you know it, hit OK…

Sorry. Just keeping myself entertained.

Anyway, check out the Layers palette again. New layer! Cool, eh? Toggle visibility, just for gits and shiggles…

Alright, next bit.  Just guess what you’re going to do now?

Yep, new adjustment layer.  This time we want the Curves option.

Mmm… Curves….

And I’m not even going to tell you how to find it.  (Hint:  Layers – New Adjustment Layers – Curves.  D’OH!)

Actually, we’re doing Curves now because when I made my highlights and midtones a little lighter, I lost a bit of detail with the shadows.  The levels tool could bring them back but not in a nice way.  It looked a little rough.  Curves allows for ultra-fine tuning of contrast and I want to add some more depth.

So what you want to do once you’ve got your Curves dialogue box up is make a very shallow S-shape by clicking and holding on the line and dragging one side up and then clicking and holding on the line again somewhere else and dragging the other side down.  Have a play with this. Go to extremes.  You can even add extra anchor points for ridiculously minuscule tuning.  We’re not going that far.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

The changes can be as subtle or dramatic as you like.  What I tend to do is take it to the extreme and then pull back until you think it looks great.

Click on OK once you’re happy.  This next image shows where I got my happy:

There. That should be it. End of tutorial.

Sorry, that’s a little anticlimactic.

TADAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

See?  Nice B&W image.

Because this is fairly labour-intensive I would recommend you do this only on the photos you think are great, though you can create actions in Photoshop which will automate the process as much or as little as you like – but that’s a tutorial for another day.

Last tip:  Because everything you’ve adjusted is on a separate layer, you can go ahead and tweak or, if you’re feeling ultra brave, add MOAR layers.  Or even delete them, because that’s fine too.  Just double click on the specific adjustment layer you want to mess with and start playing again!  You can even duplicate the layers to keep building up the effects.  Like I said, endless ways of doing things.

I hope this was of some use, in my next manic tutorial, I will show how to pull detail back out out of shadowy images.