Problems with B&W conversion in CS3

In using either the Channel Mixer (Adjustment Layer) or Black and White Filter (Adjustment Layer) to convert colour images to B & W, I find that my final images have a blue tint to them. Changing the image to Greyscale gets closer to a B&W image as I would expect it to appear - but I really shouldn't have to do this. Why are my conversions ending up with a blue tint and is there a solution? (My screen on which I view my images is calibrated frequently, so I would not expect this to be the cause of the blue tint). Onesimus

Easy to check - after conversion, what are the RGB values? If they are equal eg 128,128,128, then you can be sure that the black-and-white conversion has been done properly. In that case, it's definitely your monitor.

Tell us more about your monitor and calibration? What device do you use to calibrate?

Thanks your your response, Damien!

I am using a 20" iMac calibrated by using Colorvision's Spyder2 software and hardware. I re-calibrated my screen yesterday.

I re-did a B&W conversion and it still had that blue tint. However, I did some experimenting and when I moved that B&W Adjustment Layer to the top, it came out as what I expected the image to be. It seems that the solution involves simply ensuring that the Channel Mixer Layer or B&W Adj layer is the top layer! By the way, how do you find the RGB values of a B&W image?

Onesimus

In the info palette ...

Damien, found out you were a Brisbane boy! I'm from Sydney!

I went to the Info palette and found that the eye-dropper reads the RGB value at any point in the image where ever you move the eye-dropper. In all cases, the RGB values are the same (eg a dark part of the image might have a reading of R21B21G21 whereas a bright part might have a reading of R199B199G199). I assume that this is what the RBG readings should be after the B&W conversion - the same regardless of where the reading is taken.

Again thanks for your assistance Damien! (Will take some time to visit your website).

Onesimus

Now you know another way to do a tint! If you move another layer to the top and change opacity, you can make some interesting changes.