How do you turn digital to Black and White?

I was just wondering how people turned there digital photos to Black and White? I know of four ways to do this in Photoshop 7.0. Any other ways of doing this? Is one way better than another?

Thanks

It depends on the photo and on the effect you want to achieve. Some pictures naturally lend themselves to simple desaturation, others don't.

None of the above.

This does incorporate the channel mixer, but goes well beyond:

http://194.100.88.243 …ital_Black_and_​White.html

none of the above either

try looking at "image/adjustments/gra​dient map"

None of the above either. I use this in PSCS: http://www.rogercavana​gh.com/actions/variati​ons/02_bw.htm

Recommended

Cheers

Ian

I would assume that Rog's script uses most of these to get the final results.

I did not relize that there are so many ways to turn photos into Black and White. thanks

I would guess there is some truth in that. But I don't worry about it, I just press the buttons and get great output.

Cheers

Ian

I like to make photos look sepia-toned.
using colorize in Photoshop.....

New photos look like they were taken in the 1800's..

iwatkins wrote:
None of the above either. I use this in PSCS: http://www.rogercavana​gh.com/actions/variati​ons/02_bw.htm

Recommended

Cheers

Ian

I just tried this script and it is no good for printing.
If you want a photo for the web etc its fine to do it this way but if want it to look good in print...

...you also have to consider the technicalities of printing - I don't mean photographic prints, I mean magazine/book printing etc.

There sould never be 100% white (so to speak) or 100% black in an image.
These values should be around 2-3% in the lightest areas and 97-98% in the darker areas.

The reason being that any area with no information (0% black) will show the blank paper the photo is printed on and will give the images a "cut-out" look.
100% black will become muddy when printed because there are so many dots printed so close together.

You learn something new everyday, I didn't know that.

Doesn't stop me using it though, I only use it for processing before web use or for my own printing (using inkjet).

Cheers

Ian

Ian, yes its a great script for free and perfectly usable for anything other than magazine/book printing.
I don't want to put people off it - thats not my intention. I just thought I would point this out in case people weren't aware of it.

Desaturate or channel mixer. I always try the former first and if I don't like the way it looks I use the latter.

I'm going to chime in here since our (mine and Paul Jaruszewski's) Variations Suite B&W conversion script has been mentioned.

First, an apology: since V-Suite scripts are available in both free and donation-ware versions, this post could be construed as marketing.

Secondly, thanks to Ian for his enthusiastic endorsement and to Evilenglishman for clarifying his negative feedback - just before I stomped him. The script is designed for web images and inkjet printing; neither Paul nor I are in a position to test results with the kinds of printers used for mags and books. EE makes it sounds like it's just a matter of adjusting IO levels, but I don't suppose it's that simple (of course, if it is that simple, you might just see an new feature in the next version ).

Coming back to the initial point of the thread, there are definitely other ways to convert B&W than those listed in the poll, and it's complicated by the fact that different settings can be used with many of these methods. Slejhammer mentioned the channel mixer method - how many different ways are there to combine channel values with this?

I'm currently working on V2 of B+W Variations (perhaps, we should call it "Mark II" ). It has 32 different treatments for conversion using 6 or 7 - without actually checking the code, I can't remember the precise figure - with different settings. Each one of the 32 options gives a different result; one of my test images is a print profile chart that has around 750 swatches on it. So it's easy to see what effect the different methods have. As Yance said early on the "best" method depends on the subject matter, except, of course, there's no such thing as the best method, it depends what you like the look of. One technique we didn't use is straight desaturation - doesn't give enough flexibility.

None of this, of course, touches upon the additional complications of toning or adding grain, or the other things you might do to the image.

Regards,

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
EE makes it sounds like it's just a matter of adjusting IO levels, but I don't suppose it's that simple (of course, if it is that simple, you might just see an new feature in the next version ).

Roger, I 'think' it can be as simple as that. all other values will print fine, its just the "cut off" points that have to be watched.

I'm not sure but I would imagine this is difficult to achieve with a script as any two images run through an identical process will give different final results.

Thanks for not stomping me