the best way to B&W

[roman_t]

i shoot in raw and convert to tiff or jpeg with capture one. i tried breezebrowser and other tools but c1pro and camera raw has more for fine tuning.
actually i don't care about colours. i want my images to be monochrome. or sepia.
i use features like grayscale, color mixer and desaturation to tiffs. and i desaturate in camera raw. does anyone have only flaw for b&w processing?
has anyone got an opinon on cs2?
i installed 30days demo yesterday. not sure yet.

[tim]

CS2 is great, it's the only image editing type program I use.

I know about 4 ways to convert to B&W.
- Channel mixer
- Calculations
- Desaturate

I forget the next 1 or 2. This book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735714118/qid=1107206467/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-9127707-6895351?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) has about 6 methods.

For sepia I use yervants actions (maybe not spelled like that), a free set of actions I got off the net. I also use virtual photographer, also free, it's a bunch of filters. I highly recommend them, it's a 1-click solution. If you can't find them email me and i'll find them for you this weekend.

[RAitch]

You can also convert a B&W image to sepia (or any colour) by creating a new layer filled with a selected colour and changing the blend mode to colour. You can even fine tune the effect by playing with the fill colour and layer transparancy.

There are more than 6 ways to convert an image to B&W in PS... all of which do a great job. If you create a desaturate layer, you can play with the colour ranges to alter the appearance of specific colours. This is nice when your foreground matches your sky... you can shift the blues which ends up either making them lighter or darker without damaging picture information.

PS RULEZ!

[roman_t]

thank you tim
i forget calculations and wrote colour instead channel mixer.
seems there's no universal tool out there since we deal with rgb?
i am new to digital camera and wbalance is a latest thing i want to think about.
so it depends upon which one of channels i need more (skin,sky,leaves...)

[roman_t]

to raitch
which technique of those you named is the safest for portrait? really have not i loose data when i desaturate channels? which mode i better for b&w work - tiff cmyk or tiff rgb?

[markubig]

i desaturate ... but only to about -90 and the fool around with levels and contrast to make the B&W conversion more vibrant (to me, straight desaturation looks kinda boring). To change to sepia, i first convert to to B&W, and then raise the red levels and lower the blue levels until I get my desired result.

Here's an example of a B&W and Sepia:

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3262736-md.jpg

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/3392336-lg.jpg

[RAitch]

to raitch
which technique of those you named is the safest for portrait? really have not i loose data when i desaturate channels? which mode i better for b&w work - tiff cmyk or tiff rgb?

You should test all of the modes... don't forget lab. Lab might not be nice for portraits, but the possibilities are endless if you mix different versions with blend modes and masks.

Personally, I usually just leave the image in RGB and pick one of 2 of the channels as a starting point. For portraits, mixing 80% red with 20% green I think usually works well.

In PS, NEVER change your original image. When possible, use adjustment layers. Create a Hue/Saturation layer and drop the saturation to 0. That's a really fast way to get a B&W image. The only problem is the lack of control.
To get slightly more control, select a specific colour channel to start with. Then you can choose the one that looks better.
The other way, as I mentioned, works the best where you can desaturate the image but control the colour ranges of the original (copy) so that they desaturate differently. That way you can affect just a portion of the colour spectrum at a time. Create a Selective Colour Adjustment Layer and play with the reds, blues, blacks, etc... That's a really fast way to change anything that's red in your image to another colour. Play around with it, it's cool. Put your desaturation layer on top and watch your B&W image change to your liking.

As I said, find 2 methods that you like and blend them together using blend modes. Try multiply, screen, or even softlight to enhance some contrast. Maybe luminocity will do something for you. With blending, again, the options are seriously endless.

[roman_t]

i try to leave more red but then people lips get pale. blue channel less 0 and green one takes most thats kind of look i liked. interesting options in adobe camera raw (advanced) where channel hue/saturation tuning. i need more to read about mixing layers. about lack of control you are absolutely right. you never know where you're going to say "stop, thats it".

[CyberPet]

If you want to give Channel mixer a try, try these settings to begin with:

Output Channel: Grey
Red: +24
Green: +68
Blue +8

Make sure the "Monocrome" checkbox is ticked.

Depending on the colors you might have to adjust some of the levers... but it's a good start and then get creative! :)

[RAitch]

I find that with portraits, the red channel has some better information to work with. Especially if you're trying to use a channel to build a composite or selection, the red channel seems to be the best place to start.
That's why I was recommending starting with 80-20-0.

Most cameras have serious troubles with the blue channel. You'll see a lot of damaged detail (noise) in the blue channel.

Of course, each picture is unique and with different lighting, you'll have to play to find what's best.

I would totally recommend creative a selective colour adjustment layer and then a desaturation layer on top. Change the colour ranges to suit your needs and watch how changing pink skin into virbrant pink can make your B&W image stand out. Play with all the settings and you'll have FULL CONTROL over your B&W conversion.

[mickle]

The way I prefer do convert to B/W is also a quite common way to do it and produces some good results.

Change mode to Lab Color.
Select the Lightness layer in the channels palette.
Change mode to Greyscale. (elect to discard other channels)
Change mode to RGB.
Duplicate the layer.
Set the blending mode of the new layer to Multiply.
Then adjust the opacity of the new layer to get the effect you want.

[roman_t]

i walked those steps. mike's method gave more detailed image. raitch's one gave lighter image i think. but there was a blonde at the picture so it'd work for dark hair. cyberpet trick did the lightest tone and less skin texture so if i would like to smooth skin it's fine.
thank you ladies and gentelmen. thats a forum!
and again to raw. i monochromed with hue/saturation sliders in camera raw only and some images looked fine. especialy those with sky and clouds. all i did in ps after i saved.
not creative too much but sometimes would be enough. anyway alot to learn in ps cs2.

[RAitch]

raitch's one gave lighter image i think. but there was a blonde at the picture so it'd work for dark hair.

In that case, on your selective colour layer, choose the yellows and and some black to them... or shift the other colours to another part of the spectrum and you'll get your detail enhanced.

Also, you can easily add a curves layer to adjust the overall brightness of the image.

LAB is really cool to work with and can be useful in certain situations. As I mentioned before, you should try combinations of everything to get the best result.

[roman_t]

what a lazy bastard i am. why havent i checked this link before asking?
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34606
but i am glad so many people shared their skills in b&w pshopping. it's actual.
about cs2 - my pc works slower with it. i hear hdd running all the time.
isnt it greedy for ram and larger cash?

[EOSAddict]

There is quite a nice B&W plugin on photo-plugins.com if that is your thing!

[RAitch]

Photoshop has always been a pig with memory. The good thing is it always managed it nicely.
It will use every K of spare memory it can find, but has been usually good about releasing it for other programs.
I've notice my PC running slowly at times, but would attribute that to spyware before PS in most cases. Unless of course I have a couple 80MB PS files open.

[Baadil]

I have work on 500-600MB PS files without PS ever crashing on me. At that time I have only 1 GB in my system and at times system would slow down. now with 2GB, it has no hickups at all.

[RAitch]

PS uses memory much better than most applications... that use less memory.
It's always baffled me that's for sure.

I've never had PS crash or kill my system.

[roman_t]

i've got two machines - athlon 2,5/1gbram/nforce2(at home) and celeron 2,4/256/intel865(office)
winxppro both. no problem with first one but celeron is nothing but a junk. i have to stop all processes if ps is on. cs2's heavier yet. i wonder mac users have the same ram hunger or dont?
to eosaddict: very nice link. been added to favorites.

[cassarilda]

The way Ive found the best with the most control is an extra method mentioned by a few people here.

If you create a desaturate layer, you can play with the colour ranges to alter the appearance of specific colours.

Basically, the way I do it, is to create TWO Hue/Sat layers, one atop the other. Leave the topmost layer blendmode as "Normal", but the bottom one, change to blendmode to "Colour".

Now set the Saturation of the TOP layer to -100%. This will change it to B&W... funnily enough.

The usefulness of the bottom layer comes when you go into it, and change the tones of the B&W using the Hue slider.. just be careful using this technique that you dont stagger or step your tones.

So yeah, thats my perfered B&W changer... that and ChannelMixer... it really depends on the image.

I usually tone using a curves layer

[Goofup]

I second the B/W plugin at Photo Plugins. Amazing, and it's free.

[RAitch]

The only problem with that approach is if you're changing the tones of a black and white image, you'll start adding to the tonal ranges and if you make more changes, you can affect more than you want.
It works a little better than the hue sliders because you've got 4 parameters for each basic colour range. You can apply masks and all that and create multiple selective colour layers, but I find 1 is usually enough. Using more than 1 layer is for those really picky people.

That's why I like changing with a selective colour layer and then desaturate that. The selective colour layer will always use the original's colours so you can affect the greens, yellows, blues, whites, blacks, or whatever, not by adjusting a gray range. You'll see the effect it has on the B&W image if your saturation layer is visible.
You get some pretty scary results if you hide the saturation layer, but that doesn't matter.

[roman_t]

yesterday i had a call from girl who wants b/w portrait. so i'm going to try all methods on her (i mean her image). for most people in here b/w photograph is an exotic art. i was surprised and pleased. i'd post original shot and my b/w version - feel free to edit.

[ryan_kalani]

If you want to give Channel mixer a try, try these settings to begin with:

Output Channel: Grey
Red: +24
Green: +68
Blue +8

Make sure the "Monocrome" checkbox is ticked.

Depending on the colors you might have to adjust some of the levers... but it's a good start and then get creative! :)
That is what I do too.