Convert to Black & White

[Andrew B.]

For B/W conversion, here is a method I picked up from one of the Russell Brown tutorials:

Add two hue/saturation layer masks. On the top one, turn saturation all way down. On the lower of the two, set it to Color blending mode. And it is in this lower one where you will do all your adjusting. For example, the hue slider takes you through the range of color-to-bw filters. The saturation slider affects the intensity. Using the drop down in the hue/saturation adjustment layer lets you target one color in the conversion. And using the range sliders at the bottom of the hue/saturation adjustment layer lets you adjust the range of color that is targeted.

In many ways, this method is much easier and more powerful.

[terrie]

Sounds like a most intriguing approach...will play with this...

Thanks!

Terrie

[Cristen Gillespie]

Originally Posted by terrie

Sounds like a most intriguing approach...will play with this...

Thanks!

Terrie

Russsel Brown's method really is a lot of fun. The Color blend mode layer is acting like a traditional filter on the lens for a film camera. Expensive plugins often let you add a "filter" for B&W conversion and this mimics that very nicely.

[terrie]

cristen: Russsel Brown's method really is a lot of fun.

Fun is good...'-}}

I usually find Russell's stuff quite useful...I'm hoping to have time to play with the approach this afternoon...

Terrie

[Cristen Gillespie]

Terrie:
I usually find Russell's stuff quite useful.

Russell is one of the few who constantly impresses me both with how well he understands what PS is doing, and with how well he explains it. I wish he weren't doing so much video, as that's just too much for dialup.

[terrie]

cristen: I wish he weren't doing so much video, as that's just too much for dialup.

I haven't been to his site in a long while but I knew he was doing video and I'm assuming they aren't captioned but haven't had a chance to get over there and take a look...

Terrie

[Cristen Gillespie]

Terrie: I'm assuming they aren't captioned

Probably a fair assumption, which would make two of us who can't enjoy his work.

I haven't been in a long time to Russell's site since he started putting out more video than PDF, and thought I shouldn't say he uses too much video without checking out what he's doing now. It seems he's doing MORE video. I didn't see any articles in PDF on the entire first page of tutorials. They were all QT movies. Oh well. Nice he offers so much for free, even if there are several of us who simply can't enjoy it.

[terrie]

cristen: They were all QT movies.

Ugh!

Thanks for checking...

Terrie

[ElyseC]

Originally Posted by Cristen Gillespie

Russsel Brown's method really is a lot of fun. The Color blend mode layer is acting like a traditional filter on the lens for a film camera. Expensive plugins often let you add a "filter" for B&W conversion and this mimics that very nicely.

I tried it and tested against what I got from ol' Mode > Grayscale and maybe it was the image I tried it with, but I couldn't tell the diff between the best of the Russell Brown method and simply changing Mode.

I supposed I should do a lot more experimentation on lots of images, but this first test hasn't persuaded me. Mode changing takes maybe two seconds (if you're a slow mouse mover).

[Cristen Gillespie]

Originally Posted by ElyseC

I tried it and tested against what I got from ol' Mode > Grayscale and maybe it was the image I tried it with, but I couldn't tell the diff between the best of the Russell Brown method and simply changing Mode.

I supposed I should do a lot more experimentation on lots of images, but this first test hasn't persuaded me. Mode changing takes maybe two seconds (if you're a slow mouse mover).

If you mainly convert portraits to greyscale, you'll possibly not find using digital "filters" to be of any real benefit. The straight change uses heavy input from the green channel, some from the red, and almost nothing from the blue. This makes it a good general purpose conversion, but less than meeting the full potential of some kinds of images.

You're not going to want to use a deep red or orange filter on a portrait, normally, but you would on a landscape, perhaps, especially if you needed to punch up a sky. In the case of portraits, you can delete all but the green channel and often have a satisfactory conversion, so if that's what you're doing, stick with mode conversion (takes 3 keys on my Mac, no mousing about it<G>)

I have Russell, and several other B&W conversion methods, on speed dial. I'm currently enamored of one that uses Calculations. '-) But that's because I do this routinely with all types of subjects, either for the sake of creating a B&W or to use a B&W conversion layer in luminosity mode for super quick tonal adjustments.