20% off all products!   Sale ends tonight at midnight EST.

Turning a color image to a realistic black and white

Louise Reeves

Blog #2 of 4

Previous

|

Next

May 29th, 2015 - 04:01 PM

Blog Main Image
Turning a color image to a realistic black and white

Many people think that just using one of the three Photoshop adjustments (Grayscale, Saturation, Desaturate) is enough to give a photo a mood or make it more "artsy". They would be wrong. In the first image, the photo was changed to black and white with no preparation or adjusting. Note that it's really not as much black and white as it is gray. There's no depth, not tonal quality. Nothing "pops". In the center image, I first increased the contrast then went to Image>Adjustments>Black and White. This is my choice for changing an image and you can see why by the sliders on the right. These sliders control each color-unlike Grayscale, the color data remains, allowing for individual changing or enhancement of the channel present in the original color version. By working each channel, either making it darker or lighter, you can achieve more depth and tonal qualities.

Now we go to the last image, which was finished off with the Dodge and Burn tools, primarily Dodge in this instance. I equate the dodge tool to a soapy sponge. It cleans the murky portions, allowing them to shine and further give the image depth.The Dodge tool (and the Burn tool) has 3 mode settings: Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. Then there is the opacity, which I prefer at 25% or below. It's much easier to go over something more than twice than have to start over because you took too much off. For "Shadows", you would dodge only the darkest portions and must be careful as too much dodging will bring out any noise present. Once you start to see slight results, move on the Midtones to finish. Use the "Highlights" setting only on what you want to be the whitest in the image.

Hope this helps you to achieve a natural looking black and white image!

As a finishing touch, I use a Photo Filter, also found in "Image>Adjustments". I prefer Sepia, set at about a 20% opacity. By doing this, I remove the last traces of any cyan or blue that might show in a print.
I apologize for the tiny image, Didn't know that would happen. Here is the Flickr lik to it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7543552@N07/18054223668/in/dateposted-public/

Comments

Post a Comment

There are no comments on this blog.   Click here to post the first comment.