B/W help needed. (baby alert)

This b/w is for a customer. I used channel mixer/curves/contrast.

what can i do for a good b/w conversion if this isnt the best way?

She wants sepia too, and i dont know a good way to do it, anyone have a good process for me? PLease C+C as harsh as possible, i need to improve.

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I think you may have messed up when you did the curves. I am seeing blotchiness on some of the mid-tones. It is simple to do sepia. Add a photo filter adjustment leve with sepia and adjust to liking.

PS cute photo...

One of the best B&W conversion routines I have found is here

http://www.gormanphoto​graphy.com/bw_conversi​on.pdf

The PDF document outlines how to build it into an action, at the end of which you have a couple of layers by which you can do some tweaking of the brightness contrast (minor amount) of the image.

Then, on top of that, you can add an additional curves layer for more contrast work.

I am lazy and just do gradient mapping then a levles adjustment layer...

Thanks for the link, ill take a look.

i think some of the blotchiness is from the compression. it is about a 5th generation copy of a lpg by now, i just posted a junker copy after playing too long. Ill try the tips and post the 2 sidebyside

ty

I personally believe that many pictures just look better in color. Unfortunately, customers want black and white. I usually beat the objection by telling them that I will only give black and whites that are appropriate for that conversion.

Is your picture of a black child? I can't really tell. If it is, then that can cause a problem. When you photograph dark skin people, especially for black and white, a strong right or left light source is useful. It is much harder to create contrast on dark skin which would make a black and white conversion very difficult.

Example of extreme lighting:

White mom, half hispanic dad. black hair, lightly tan baby.

I found a nice action that beat the pants off this conversion using channel mixer on atncentral.com - fast and easy to adjust before finalizing. It doesnt gimme the super-processed feel of my original try, either.

-yah this lady is nuts about B/W... I am giving her the color copies, and a few conversions in addition to the colors. She isn't paying enough to justify alot of PP time, so i really like the actions. I can batch them too, and walk away from the machine totally, which i like alot.

Scott_Quier wrote in post #2389200
One of the best B&W conversion routines I have found is here

http://www.gormanphoto​graphy.com/bw_conversi​on.pdf

The PDF document outlines how to build it into an action, at the end of which you have a couple of layers by which you can do some tweaking of the brightness contrast (minor amount) of the image.

Then, on top of that, you can add an additional curves layer for more contrast work.

ok, I am trying to figure this out. I am stuck though when I changed color to lab color. then it says to click on the highlights channel. How do i do that. i can find no where that says highlights channel. Where is that? then it says a couple of steps later click on grey channel. I can't find that either. Please help

sorry just have to say she is ADORABLE!

bphillips330 wrote in post #2585697
ok, I am trying to figure this out. I am stuck though when I changed color to lab color. then it says to click on the highlights channel. How do i do that. i can find no where that says highlights channel. Where is that? then it says a couple of steps later click on grey channel. I can't find that either. Please help

It's actually the "brightness" channel. Select it, then go Image>Mode>Grayscale. This technique is better for those who don't have a lot of experience with Channels, and you can always adjust the RGB channels later.

rowdyred94 wrote in post #2586243
It's actually the "brightness" channel. Select it, then go Image>Mode>Grayscale. This technique is better for those who don't have a lot of experience with Channels, and you can always adjust the RGB channels later.

that is the thing, when i tried to open the channel mixer, it was greyed out and i could not get to it. Is the brightness channel in the channel mixer??

If you are using PhotoShop CS or CS 2 try this out...

Black and White Conversion