B+W and photoshop

[RuthieC]

Hiya
I have been doing some B+W photography lately - but it has been a case of doing the conversion in photoshop. Any tips on the best ways of getting a result if you are taking the picture in colour and then have to change it in photoshop.

When we were kids we were able to develop our own and get all kinds of fun effects as my brother had a darkroom. But those days are sadly long gone. So I am now trying to figure out how to do B+W in this digital world

[Keith (M)]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Hello Ruth,

Tis always better to capture the image in full colour then post-process in Photoshop or whatever, rather than setting the camera to monochrome. When it comes to the ins and outs of converting to B&W, I doubt if there is enough space here to do the subject any justice at all, so I would point you to what is IMHO the best source of advice and feedback on all things monochrome - the Digital Monochrome Forum. There is plenty of information on all aspects and it is a very friendly forum.

[Janner]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Good link Keith.

I took the liberty & browsed your Website - very impressive sets of images.
Is this your own designed site ?
Something I've been considering doing for a long while !!

Janner

[Martin]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Ruthie,

Depends which version of PS you are using. From CS3, there is a great adjustment layer mask for mono conversions - I use it for mine.

Martin

[Keith (M)]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Good link Keith.

I took the liberty & browsed your Website - very impressive sets of images.
Is this your own designed site ?
Something I've been considering doing for a long while !!

Janner

Thanks Janner - heartening to get positive feedback on my paltry efforts :)

As to the website design, yes it is all my own work. A few years back I decided I will create a homepage, so got a book from the library and using Notepad + html commands, knocked-up v1. Discovering freeware programs such as NVU and later Kompozer made life much easier - these are programs that allow you to create a document in a similar fashion to using word-processing software, but then turns it into html. All the pages on my website were created in this fashion.

For my photo albums I used Gallery, which is an open-source web-based album organiser.

Good luck with creating yours, if/when you decide to take the plunge!

[Dave]

Re: B+W and photoshop

I usually add a Chanel mixing adjustment layer. In the bottom left of the dialogue box is a "monochrome" tick box. This gives you a WYSIWYG converter. If you convert to CMYK first, you get four sliders instead of three.



One advantage to this method (thanks to the adjustment layer) is that it can be undone at any stage – even after saving.

[Jacqui]

Re: B+W and photoshop

I have the Scott Kelby Photoshop CS2 and CS3 books, which have sections on converthing to B&W using different methods and I find them very easy to follow .....

I find myself refering back to them when I convert to Monochrome because I can never remember everything ;-)

Jacqui

[Archivist]

Re: B+W and photoshop

If you play with the channels try to ensure all the mixes add up to 100%. To start with.

[carregwen]

Re: B+W and photoshop

The CS3/CS4 versions do have better facilities for B&W. I find I can get slightly better results with more fine control using a plug-in I have called Power Retouche. You can either buy the full set for about £90, or the B&W Studio, which is about £30. You can download them and try first.

http://www.powerretouche.com/index.htm

Works on all versions of PS including Elements.

[RuthieC]

Re: B+W and photoshop

I have photoshop CS3 which i have been using to convert photos to b&W but somehow i feel like a cheat doing that. Am i old fashioned in thinking b&W should be with a B&W film. Having said that, I do love digital, as it saves loads of hassle and time etc

[carregwen]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Am i old fashioned in thinking b&W should be with a B&W film. Having said that, I do love digital, as it saves loads of hassle and time etc

Technology, for digital, is quite capable of doing as well as film B&W, but it will never be the same. And why should it be? Half the fun is creating something new in every generation. There were a great deal of bad b&w film shots produced!

[Mike_W]

Re: B+W and photoshop

For those interested you can download or view a quicktime movie on converting colour to B&W in Photoshop here:

http://photoshopnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/color-bw.mov

[hotkeez]

Re: B+W and photoshop

Carry 2 cameras. You don't seem to get the same results when converting on PC.