Jet with a stormy sunset....

Taken durring our daily afternoon thunderstorm at Houston IAH. An ExpressJet EMB-145XR waits to depart....

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This one might be a good B&W candidate. Anyone wanna tell me how to do the conversion properly?

in:
Elements 2.0 / Digital Photo Pro

I know I can just desaturate, but I think that is also not the proper way.....

Like it! Interesting sky.

Here's a quick conversion

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nice shot. I like the color - but since you asked in PSE I use Image -> Adjustments -> Gradient Map. Another is to go into "adjust color" and removing it - though they generally turn out very neutral. Finally you can do like above and go into "Enhance -> adjust color -> hue/saturation ->desatrate individual color channels" as well - but for a quick an easy - the first method works for me 95% of the time.

Here are some examples using an image of mine just so you can see how the process just using each method quick and dirty. The first is the orignal - second is "remove color", third is "desturate" and forth is "gradient Map" Pick the method that give you the results you like best..... cheers

desaturate and then gradient map - the difference are very subtle but very identifiable in larger images... plus for what ever reason which I don't fully understand - they all look different posted then they do in the original PSE version.... go figure. Cheers.

Ok here is my very first B&W from color attempt!

Bryan, thanks for the motivation. I have been looking here:
http://www.digital-monochrome.com/index.h​tm
and trying to get results like his...
I also dont know how to clone things out on elements! Guess I need to learn that too!

Croasdail, I used your advice and went with the gradient map. Thanks for the samples.

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I have reworked the original color image too. Basically I made the B&W version a layer and gave it about 50% opacity.... Let me know what you think, Thanks...

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It gets a little dark on the far edge - but man - does that bring out the contrast levels alot - very nice. I 'll have to try that sometime.

embdude wrote:
Ok here is my very first B&W from color attempt!

Bryan, thanks for the motivation. I have been looking here:
http://www.digital-monochrome.com/index.h​tm
and trying to get results like his...
I also dont know how to clone things out on elements! Guess I need to learn that too!

Photoshop is a steep learning curve - but it has a great 'step back' facility for when you mess it up !!

I just used the rectangular marquee tool to identify an area of tarmac below and to the left of the aircraft - then used CTRL-T to get control - dragged it across the rest of the tarmac to cover the runway board - press enter - job done.

I use a plug-in called A/W conversion from Photo-Plugins.com for the B&W conversion. It has a variety of standard porgrammes plus all the flexibility in between.

I also used Unsharp Mask to bring a bit more detail to the aircraft - 250% - 0.3 radius and 0 threshold

Everyone has their different preferences - just use what you are comfortable with - it's your image.

Regards