[Arpe]

I have CS3. I have tried to use it's B&W filter presets, but I'm finding it difficult. The shots end up looking more like watercolour painting then like a digital image. Any ideas?

Photoshop has basically the same setup in (from memory) image-adjust-black and white. All those colour sliders appear. Have a play. If that 's not enough try adjusting contrast, I like my b&w's to be quite contrasty.

[FHPhotographer]

Yvon, I'm comparing three different conversions at this point: PS3 using Lab Color curves, toning and shyarpening, then Channel Mixer in Monochrome; a fairly complicated PS "actions" scrips somebody gave me; and Efex Silver Pro.

I don't have Lightroom, so can't speak to that, but of the three I think the Efex works best mainly because it seems to make "micro" pixel level changes that produce better contrast and range; it also offer the Control Point system that seems to make area changes that shift with the top filter of process.

If there's a Lightroom trail download, I'll try that, comparde/contrast and post any interesting results,
FHPhotographer

[FHPhotographer]

Photoshop has basically the same setup in (from memory) image-adjust-black and white. All those colour sliders appear. Have a play. If that 's not enough try adjusting contrast, I like my b&w's to be quite contrasty.

I'm using PS3 as well but found I get better results by doing it in two stages: first gross chantges in ACR (Bridge) that comes with PS3; second, finer changes in Photoshop: Image>Mode>Lab Color>Lightness for curves, toning and sharpening, then Image>Mode>Channel Mixer in Monochrome; then finally coming back for some fine tuning with Curves.
And I suspect the other postrers are correct, this should probably be shifted to the Post Processing forum. Good luck,
FHPhotographer

I have CS3. I have tried to use it's B&W filter presets, but I'm finding it difficult. The shots end up looking more like watercolour painting then like a digital image. Any ideas?

Axl I think I remember hearing that Lightroom is the better application for handling B&W conversions. Why not do the 30 day trial and follow Yvonne's process?

[ebooks4pentax]

I see where your coming from Gooshin, this thread would be better placed in the Post Processing & Software section.

Also, this post is just a copy and paste from your blog Yvon and it reads like one too. If you want people to read your blog, make a link and get people to discuss it as I don't see the point in a double posting.

Besides that, congratulations for all the work you've put into the Pentax online community.

Yes, I suppose that the thread could be posted in the Post Processing & Software section. I actually never posted under that section and frankly, never knew it existed. It would be okay for the forum hosts to relocate the thread.

Not all the people that belong to this forum read my Blog and not all people reading my blog suscribe to this forum, hence posting the same information at various places.

My goal is always to bring usefull material to all the Pentax community. It is considered rude or spamming to include a link to my website within a thread. I always want to do right.

I hope I didn't offend anyone.

Yvon Bourque

[marcdsgn]

In Photoshop (almost any version) and probably Lightroom and other pixel-based programs, a very basic method to achieve the same effect as would have been gained via on-camera filters for B&W film is simply to convert the image to an RGB file, then separate the channels. This will break the image into three separate grayscale files, each representing one of the three primary colours of light - Red, Green and Blue.

With many shots, simply choosing one of these channels and using is as your final B&W shot will provide quite a dynamic image by itself. In other cases, cut-pasting one of the channels over another and pulling down the overlaying channel's transparency to "blend" the two channels will achieve a nice effect.

This is very much a subjective method and relies on your own judgement as to which channels are best to keep and which are best to remove. But I'd recommend trying this process first if you can, as it could save you a lot of bother.

[Alan 2]

I have CS3. I have tried to use it's B&W filter presets, but I'm finding it difficult. The shots end up looking more like watercolour painting then like a digital image. Any ideas?

I tend to use different B&W conversions for different photos. Depends on what I want out of it. One of my most used for CS3 is the light channel lab method.

1) In CS3 Image/Mode/Lab color
2) In the Channels Palette click on the light channel, then go back and do Image/Mode/greyscale
3) Create a curves layer but don't do anything with it, just click on okay. Go to the blending menu and choose Multiply if it's to light (normally the case) or screen if it's to dark. Use the Opacity slider until it looks about right.

It's still likely going to look a bit flat so create another curves layer. A nice S curve usually does the trick, but you can play with it till it looks right.

the nice thing about using the light channel from lab is that you don't run into any of the noise problems that can come up using the B&W mixer in lightroom or the channel mixer. It also does a much better job of preserving subtle tones in the highlights. It doesn't work for every photo but I use it about 80% of the time. You can make a action for it that makes it very easy.

[EricT]

In Photoshop (almost any version) and probably Lightroom and other pixel-based programs, a very basic method to achieve the same effect as would have been gained via on-camera filters for B&W film is simply to convert the image to an RGB file, then separate the channels. This will break the image into three separate grayscale files, each representing one of the three primary colours of light - Red, Green and Blue.

With many shots, simply choosing one of these channels and using is as your final B&W shot will provide quite a dynamic image by itself. In other cases, cut-pasting one of the channels over another and pulling down the overlaying channel's transparency to "blend" the two channels will achieve a nice effect.

This is very much a subjective method and relies on your own judgement as to which channels are best to keep and which are best to remove. But I'd recommend trying this process first if you can, as it could save you a lot of bother.

This is basically what the channel mixer does. I usually use the decomposition of the picture into the three channels as a guide to how the values in the channel mixer should be set.

[barondla]

I appreciate this thread. If it had been in PP forum probably wouldn't have lokked at it. Those threads tend to be way beyond my computer skills.
Love B&W. Are you guys sure that we can do better in software than in camera? K20D allows shooting in color/converting or shooting in B&W from start. It has filters to use. Have done a few that look really good straight from camera. This wasn't true with my other Pentax bodies.

thanks
barondla

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