Converting to Black-and-White

K McCall · 07-17-2009, 11:41 AM

I made a tutorial explaining my thought-process and the steps I take when converting to black-and-white today. I was going to cross-post it on here (maybe in the articles?), but I was hoping for some feedback first. Does it make sense? For people who don't use Lightroom, is there anything useful in here at all? Is there anything that you disagree with, and if so, why?

The post is here: A Scenic World Blog Archive Why Do You Do the Things You Do?. Any feedback is appreciated. I'm not entirely sure who my audience is for my blog, but I would like for more people than not to find the stuff I write useful.

*imtheguy* · 07-17-2009, 01:30 PM

Count me in your audience. I rarely do B&W so having just read your blog I found 90% of it new to me. I will have to go back and reread a couple more times to make it stick for that next time I want to play with a B&W conversion. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

*graphicgr8s* · 07-17-2009, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by K McCall

I made a tutorial explaining my thought-process and the steps I take when converting to black-and-white today. I was going to cross-post it on here (maybe in the articles?), but I was hoping for some feedback first. Does it make sense? For people who don't use Lightroom, is there anything useful in here at all? Is there anything that you disagree with, and if so, why?

The post is here: A Scenic World Blog Archive Why Do You Do the Things You Do?. Any feedback is appreciated. I'm not entirely sure who my audience is for my blog, but I would like for more people than not to find the stuff I write useful.

Only thing I would say is the method you use to change to B&W really depends upon the picture. Another method is to convert to L-A-B (not sure if you can do that in lightroom however) and work on the channels there. You need to try a couple of different methods and see what works on the particular picture you've chosen. Some shots just don't work as B & W. Honestly I really don't think that flower shot does work as B&W.
Now if you are going to actually print the picture out you need to really change it to grayscale. If you leave it as an RGB file it will use all four colors of your printer trying to make shades of gray. What you usually wind up with is mottled grays instead of crisp photos. You want that file to print black ink only. Not sure if it answers your question and if not I apologize.

*Duck Dodgers* · 07-18-2009, 01:08 PM

Just to share, I found a B&W plugin for The GIMP a while back. Called BW Film Simulation, it emulates characteristics of various B&W films, such as:

Agfa 200X
Agfapan 25
Agfapan 100
Agfapan 400
Ilford Delta 100
Ilford Delta 400
Ilford Delta 400 Pro & 3200
Ilford FP4
Ilford HP5
Ilford Pan F
Ilford SFX
Ilford XP2 Super
Kodak Tmax 100
Kodak Tmax 400
Kodak Tri-X
Kodak HIE
Normal Contrast
High Contrast
Generic BW

Manel Brand · 07-19-2009, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

Another method is to convert to L-A-B (not sure if you can do that in lightroom however) and work on the channels there.

Don't know about LR but, yes, well pointed out. Black&white conversions benefit a lot from a proper channel evaluation.
In Lab mode you would typically throw away the a and b channels and keep the lightness values only; On the other hand, in RGB mode, a particular combination of the channels values does give more flexibility and you are not discarding the color data as you would do in Lab mode, thus being a preferable method. Of course, the best method, or the combination of both, depends on the particular image you are working on.

*graphicgr8s* · 07-19-2009, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by Manel Brand

Don't know about LR but, yes, well pointed out. Black&white conversions benefit a lot from a proper channel evaluation.
In Lab mode you would typically throw away the a and b channels and keep the lightness values only; On the other hand, in RGB mode, a particular combination of the channels values does give more flexibility and you are not discarding the color data as you would do in Lab mode, thus being a preferable method. Of course, the best method, or the combination of both, depends on the particular image you are working on.

That's what I said. (I think

) There are shots I thought would great as B & W. I would try every method I know and it just didn't work. CS3 & 4 do have better conversion control though. You have to try different ways. There is no one size fits all for conversion. Back before CS there was a way to convert using "calculations" Haven't needed that method since 3 though.

*Ash* · 07-19-2009, 09:20 PM

Good stuff Keitha,
Indeed programs like PS CS3&4 have advanced in their B&W conversions with new menu items dedicated solely to B&W conversion, with presets using colour filters, and advanced features using sliders for different colour channels, making it easier to preview and perform the conversion.

Your tutorial is really informative and practical, and shows the different results one can get - which should be emphasised to be an individual taste according to the image.

deludel · 07-28-2009, 06:50 PM

Thanks for cross-posting this here. This forum is in my Google Reader list, and now thanks to this post, A Scenic World is now in my Google Reader List!

junyo · 07-29-2009, 07:03 AM

Originally Posted by K McCall

I made a tutorial explaining my thought-process and the steps I take when converting to black-and-white today. I was going to cross-post it on here (maybe in the articles?), but I was hoping for some feedback first. Does it make sense? For people who don't use Lightroom, is there anything useful in here at all? Is there anything that you disagree with, and if so, why?

The post is here: A Scenic World Blog Archive Why Do You Do the Things You Do?. Any feedback is appreciated. I'm not entirely sure who my audience is for my blog, but I would like for more people than not to find the stuff I write useful.

Cool. I'm already doing individual color desaturation, but adjusting the WB is a new wrinkle, I'll have to try that

lithos · 07-29-2009, 11:11 AM

Just remember, folks:

jstevewhite · 07-29-2009, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by lithos

Just remember, folks:

Sure, but that's because all three colors swatches have the same luminance. Barring variances in color sensitivity, this is an indictment of black and white generally, as in theory, the same luminous intensity will produce the same shade of gray, always, regardless of color. I mean, we all know that color filters and halide sensitivity keep this from being a perfect translation, but those merely change the effective luminous intensity of a given color. Essentially this should say "desaturation kills color"...

David Glazebrook · 07-30-2009, 05:54 AM

Appreciate your efforts Keitha.

*FHPhotographer* · 07-31-2009, 10:54 PM

I've worked with several different programs, and several different methods within Photoshop to do B&W conversions, and far and away the best conversion is through the Nik Silver Effex Pro plug-in. It's expensive but in this case you really get what you pay for.

If you just do occasional B&W conversions, then using PS Channels works well enough and CS4 is the best yet... but as good as it is it still can't match the Nik output. And no, I don't work for 'em or have any vested interest in the product,
Brian (FHPhotographer)

*Frank Fletcher* · 08-02-2009, 03:09 AM

Thanks for the post. I appreciate the insight to your creative process as always.

Lightroom surprises me every day now. I used to hate it. I grew up on Photoshop. I had my own organizational workflow. Bah-humbug.

Now lightroom is pretty much my de facto software for asset management and raw conversion. 9 times out of 10, I don't need to go into photoshop.

But boy do I love my photoshop when I need to fix a wierd artifact/poor exposure, or when I want to get creative, or when I want to squeeze that extra juice out of a photo.

That being said - when I convert in PS, I normally use a Black & White adjustment layer (like "Grayscale" in LR). I don't tweak it too much at first. Then I add another Curves layer under the BW one. That way I can adjust the R/G/B (separate channels), controlling tone and contrast for each channel (rather than the linear level adjustment for each primary and secondary/opposing color as in LR). Finally, I'll go ahead and tweak out the original BW values.

It's fun to turn off the BW layer afterwards to see the garish colors/tones I've created.

Thanks again. I used to follow your blog, but then it went away for a little while and then I went away for a little while and ... I'll definitely keep an eye on it again.

f.

*séamuis* · 08-02-2009, 07:14 AM

Originally Posted by FHPhotographer

I've worked with several different programs, and several different methods within Photoshop to do B&W conversions, and far and away the best conversion is through the Nik Silver Effex Pro plug-in. It's expensive but in this case you really get what you pay for.

If you just do occasional B&W conversions, then using PS Channels works well enough and CS4 is the best yet... but as good as it is it still can't match the Nik output. And no, I don't work for 'em or have any vested interest in the product,
Brian (FHPhotographer)

I agree with this. I convert 99% of my digital photos to B&W. I was using Exposure2 by AlienSkin, but after discovering SilverEfex Pro and trying the demo, I was hooked. it ius head and shoulders above everything else out there. and if you really want that 'film look' silver efex pro is the way to go. it is available in both photoshop and lightroom plugin versions. as for the tutorial. very well done. thats exactly what people should be doing. far too many greyscale 'B&W's' out there. again very well done, and thanks for sharing!