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Black-and-white
photographs have always been considered the “fine art” of
photography. There are some collectors and purists who, for reasons
that aren’t completely understood, think traditional black and white
is the only true art form for photography. Personally, I’ve never
believed that for a second. Besides, I personally like color, and
I’m of the opinion that art is what you make of it. The most
important question to ask yourself as a nature photographer is, why
should I limit myself to either black and white or color? Do both!
As with a lot of the cool things you can do in Photoshop, converting
a color digital image to a B&W image can be accomplished in a number
of ways. I’m going to show you a few that I use. The first is a
quickie method, using the Desaturate command. A second technique
uses the Channel Mixer. A third method uses the Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer to convert color photos to black and white. Each
method has its own merits and its own uses.
TIP
Many digital cameras provide you with the ability to capture images
in black-and-white mode. One of the advantages of shooting images
with digital cameras and using Photoshop to process the images is
the fact that you can have the best of both worlds— color and black
and white. I suggest always shooting your images in color mode; you
always have the option to convert any image to black and white
later, when you’re processing the image in Photoshop.
Using the Desaturate Command to Convert to Black and White
Sometimes it’s best to take the path of least resistance. There are
many ways to convert color images to blackand white, and there’s one
little command that will allow you to do that quickly—the Desaturate
command.
Here are the steps to that quick conversion:
1. Open a photo in Photoshop that you want to convert to black and
white. Converting to black and white is a step that should be taken
after all of your color, tonal, and image edits are made. Converting
an image to black and white should be the next step in your
workflow.
2. Create a new layer to use when you make your B&W conversion.
Create a new layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E
(Shift+Command+Option+E on a Mac). Name this new layer Desaturate.
3. Desaturate the image. Choose Image, Adjustments, Desaturate or
press Shift+Ctrl+U (Shift+Command+U on a Mac).
You’ll find that using this procedure to convert your image to B&W
is about as easy as it comes. The Desaturate command simply converts
the entire image to black and white, shown in the example in Figure
1
Figure 1
The Desaturate command is the quickest way to convert color images
to black and white.
TIP
When converting color images to black and white, an important factor
to consider is that you still have an RGB or CMYK image, not
grayscale. Therefore, your printer will be using the whole spectrum
of ink at its command to print gray. One printer might produce a
pink-tinted print, and the next might produce a cool blue. By
changing the image at some point to grayscale, you’re at least using
only black (and gray, in some printers) ink.
Using the Hue/Saturation Adjustment to Convert to Black and White
The second method to convert color images to B&W involves the
Hue/Saturation adjustment. I like to use this method to desaturate
yellows, greens, blues, cyans, and magentas in a color image. I then
use the Red Saturation control to add a little tone back into the
image. By adding a little red back into the image, you get that
“selenium toned” look (black-and-white photos with a brownish tone
to them) to your converted B&W photos.
Here’s how to use this method:
1. Open a photo you want to convert to B&W. As in the Desaturate
method, make sure you’ve made your tonal and color corrections
before proceeding.
2. Create a new layer to use for the Hue/Saturation adjustment.
Create a new layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E
(Shift+Command+Option+E on a Mac). Name this new layer
Hue-Saturation.
3. Desaturate colors. Click the Edit menu and select Yellows (Ctrl+2
on a PC and Command+2 on a Mac). In the Saturation control, move the
Saturation slider all the way to a setting of 100 to remove the
yellow color. Repeat this step for each of the other colors: greens,
cyans, blues, and magentas. (You adjust the reds in the next step.)
4. Desaturate the Red channel. Move the slider all the way to a
setting of 100. Move the slider to the left slightly, until you
obtain a toned effect. A setting of 70 to 40 usually gives me the
toned effect I like in some of my B&W conversions. The photo, when
converted to B&W as shown in Figure 2, is slightly toned with a
Red-channel Saturation setting of 40.
Figure 2
Creating a B&W image with a selenium-toned appearance using the
Hue/Saturation adjustment
Using the Channel Mixer to Convert to Black and White
The Channel Mixer is another method for converting color images into
black and white. Use the Channel Mixer, remove color from your
entire image, and then fine-tune the Red, Green, and Blue channels
to obtain more control over the tones of the image you are
converting. As a reminder, Photoshop always gives you many ways to
obtain similar results, and using the Channel Mixer is another way
to convert color images to B&W.
To use the Channel Mixer to make your conversion, follow these
steps:
1. Open a photo in Photoshop that you want to convert to B&W.
Process the photo as you would any other, making the color and tonal
adjustments, and then the edits.
2. Create a new layer to use for the Channel Mixer. Create a new
layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Shift+Command+Option+E on a
Mac). Name this new layer Channel Mixer.
3. Start the Channel Mixer. Choose Image, Adjustments, Channel
Mixer.
4. Click the Monochrome check box. Clicking the Monochrome check box
immediately converts your image to black and white. Figure 3 shows
the Monochrome check box and the Channel Mixer window.
Figure 3 Using the Channel Mixer to convert color images to black
and white with finer tuning of color channels
5. Make adjustments to fine-tune the color channels. Make moderate
adjustments to the Red, Green, and Blue channels in the Channel
Mixer dialog box. You don’t need to move the Red, Green, or Blue
sliders much. Most of the time, you’ll want to adjust the Red
channel slightly to get the B&W effect you want.
Experiment by moving each slider—Red, Green, and Blue—and you’ll
probably find that only slight (or even no) adjustment gives you
great results. Figure 4 shows the image converted using the Channel
Mixer.
Figure 4 The image converted to black and white using the Channel
Mixer
Selective Color Techniques
You might have seen black-and-white images in which only a portion
of the image is in color. The technique to obtain selective color in
Photoshop is actually very simple. I always get that “wow” factor
when I show off my nature photos and mix in a few that are in black
and white, with the exception of one portion of the image.
The technique is simple, and it’s almost the same as the previous
technique that converts color to B&W, except that you save a
selection in which to retain some color.
The process to selectively retain color in a black-and-white
converted image is as follows:
1. Open a photo you want to convert to B&W while retaining a portion
of the image with color. As in the previous methods to convert to
black and white, make sure you’ve made your tonal and color
corrections and any edits that are necessary.
2. Create a new layer you can use to make selections. Create a new
layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Shift+Command+Option+E on a
Mac). Name this new layer Selections.
3. Select a part of the image to remain in color. Using the
selection techniques covered previously, select an area of the image
where you want color to remain.
4. Duplicate the layer. Right-click (Ctrl+click on a Mac) on the
active layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Name the new layer Convert
to B&W.
5. Inverse the selection. Because I want to keep the color in the
selected leaves, I choose Select, Inverse (or press Shift+Ctrl+I on
a PC or Shift+Command+I on a Mac), which inverses the selection so
the rest of the image will get converted to B&W.
6. Desaturate color. Choose Image, Adjustments, Hue/Saturation or
press Ctrl+U (Command+U on a Mac). Desaturate the reds, greens, and
blues by clicking on the Edit Selection box, choosing a color, and
then proceeding to move the Saturation slider for each color all the
way to the left.
7. Adjust contrast by using the Curves adjustment. Figure 5 shows
the original image, and then the image converted to black and white
with selective color remaining.
Figure 5 Image converted to black and white with selective color
remaining
TIP
If you shoot your images in raw format and use Camera Raw to convert
your photos, you can skip some of the black-and-white conversion
steps by doing your conversion in Camera Raw. In Camera Raw, all you
have to do is make all of your tonal and color adjustments like you
usually make them, and then move the Saturation slider to the left
to desaturate the color in the image. When you’re finished, just
click the Open button to open your image in Photoshop.
source :
http://cubox.info/photoshop/photoshop-tutorials/ |
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