Converting Your Images to Black and White.

[hmca]

I just watched this video by Kevin Mullins a UK photographer on using Lightroom for black and white conversion.  I found it very interesting to watch is approach based on beginning with the correct color profile.

Because this board is dedicated to Black and White Photography, I decided it might be helpful for members to share other techniques, videos or processes for B/W conversion that could be easily accessed in one place.
Feel free to add additional resources to this thread.

[Peterj]

I use On1 Photo Raw for almost all post processing and exclusively for B&W. Scott Davenport created a short clip on how he uses On1 for B&W

Occasionally I place a color adjustment layer beneath the B&W layer because I find there's a bit more control over individual colors saturation.

[pontiac1940]

Good topic Helen. Good video. Watched a history documentary recently..some of the old B&W photos were so good.

Agree that it's important to get levels and contrast "right" before conversions.
Posted this "gradient map" conversion before. 

With foreground color set at black and background at white, then

Layer >>> New Adjustment Layer >>> Gradient map
Click "ok" and a gradient map window will open. Click on the gradient window and you can adjust midtones using the sliders. It's a tad fussy the first time you try. 

You can adjust midtones, lights and darks after the conversion using ACR. 

[Peterj]

Color balance is essential for monochrome portraits, however I often distort colors when converting landscapes

[blackmutt]

I will have to look at this, I stink at B&W conversion....thank you Helen.

[fotofrank]

My favorite way is to start in color infrared with a converted camera. Adjust to get the best image and then convert in either Silver Effect Pro 2 of Luminar with one of my presets to B&W. The infrared glow is added as digital infrared does not glow.

[tonyw]

Interesting video (especially as I have a Fuji but not the medium format one that Kevin has!).  One thing that has changed since that video is that Lightroom CC (and Photoshop ACR) moved the profiles from the bottom of the panels to the top and added a bunch more including some really excellent B&W ones and not just the camera profiles that Kevin used.  These have become my preferred way to go for B&W conversions.  There is a new video from Matt Kloskowski that does a good job of explaining the difference between presets and profiles in LR and has a section on the B&W ones.  You can see it here

Tony 

[hmca]

Thanks for the updated information, Tony and adding the link to Matt's video.
Thanks to Peter, Clive and Frank to their contributions as well. Judy, I'm glad that you find this helpful.
I think it can be a great resource for all of us who are interested in B/W photography.

[photomono]

There are any number of ways to convert to B&W. For me, I do all of my color work on the original image in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) before I ever move on to Photoshop.

I also find it handy to do some detail work in ADR using the program's masking along with the Clarity, Texture, and Dehaze sliders.

If the image has a good histogram (i.e. ranging from end to end), then I will probably just use ADR's B&W conversion button and the B&W Mixer sliders to do some touch-ups. Then move on to PS if I think it necessary.

If the histogram needs some work, then I will do my conversion in PS and use either the Curves or Levels to adjust my image to go from full black to full white (1 to 11 on the Zone System).

Curves is also a great way to do dodging and burning. I make two layers, one for dodging and one for burning. I use a brush with a very low flow (~ 4%). Note that is flow – not opacity – as you have more control and a much more gradual and smooth increase of the light or dark than with opacity. Depending on what I am dodging or burning, I may adjust opacity to keep my touch as light as possible.

Here's a neat trick with PS that a lot of folks are not aware of. PS's B&W adjustment layer only impacts full color, not grayscale. That means that you can add a B&W layer and then mask part of the image. Then a second B&W layer will change only that part of the image that was left in color after masking. It matters not how many of these layers you use. So, if you have an image where items have very similar luminosity and you want to clearly separate them in grayscale, then you can do it by converting and adjusting one item, and then converting the balance of the image.

When first trying to the B&W images, it helps to set your camera to B&W so you can look at your images to see how you are doing. It will help you to "see" in black and white. BUT these images are Jpegs, and cameras typically have pretty neutral B&W algorithms. When you post-process, use the RAW file.

[hmca]

Thanks for sharing your work-flow ideas, Don.

Jul 2, 2022 13:10:00 GMT photomono said:

Here's a neat trick with PS that a lot of folks are not aware of. PS's B&W adjustment layer only impacts full color, not grayscale. That means that you can add a B&W layer and then mask part of the image. Then a second B&W layer will change only that part of the image that was left in color after masking. It matters not how many of these layers you use. So, if you have an image where items have very similar luminosity and you want to clearly separate them in grayscale, then you can do it by converting and adjusting one item, and then converting the balance of the image.

Interesting technique that is new to me.

[VickiD]

Wow! Great topic, Helen! Since I almost always use Nik Silver Efex Pro, I need to check these out to see if they would work for me. As the Photo Editor for our community Newsletter, I have a lot of photos to convert to b/w (bi-monthly) and if I can find an easier/faster way and still have the controls I need, I'll grab it. After all the festivities this weekend, I plan to sit down and follow all these links. Thanks to all who contributed!

[michelb]

Sept 27, 2019 23:09:43 GMT tonyw said:

Interesting video (especially as I have a Fuji but not the medium format one that Kevin has!).  One thing that has changed since that video is that Lightroom CC (and Photoshop ACR) moved the profiles from the bottom of the panels to the top and added a bunch more including some really excellent B&W ones and not just the camera profiles that Kevin used.  These have become my preferred way to go for B&W conversions.  There is a new video from Matt Kloskowski that does a good job of explaining the difference between presets and profiles in LR and has a section on the B&W ones.  You can see it here

Tony 

Very interesting link for LR and Photoshop ACR users about the power of the many and rich choice of profiles available in the recent ACR version.

Look at the 'profile' line just under 'Edit' and over 'Basic'. The icon on the right reveals the choice of profiles discussed by Matt Kloskowski.

I think that it's even more important to play with black and white profiles for Elements only users.

To translate Matt's explanations from LR to PSE ACR, the main thing is to keep in mind that you have no 'preset' management in PSE ACR. However, you can take advantage of the 'last used' settings to recover the settings of a previously edited image. So, it's up to you to save and organize your own library of effects with the organizer so that you can retrieve a specific file with the desired effect, apply any slight change to save the settings as the last edited one. This would deserve a distinct tutorial, but what is important is to concentrate on B&W with the wide choice of profiles.

There is a situation where you don't care about ultimate B&W conversions with many layers and dodge and burn:  it's if you want to produce an homogenous version of a relatively big batch of files. In that case, I open the batch in ACR, apply the 'auto' setting to all and click 'Done'. Now the selected items in the organizer will automatically open in ACR whether they are raws or jpegs. I select all and try the various B&W profiles on a test item. Then, I use the 'Save' butoon (older versions) or the 'convert and save...' icon on top right (recent versions) to save the files as independent DNG files. You can even choose the 'lossy' option to get much smaller DNGs.

The organizer can batch export those DNGs to your preferred file formats, jpeg, psd, tiff, png...

The batch processes are very fast, you don't overwrite your originals nor your best color version. And the most important is that all files are converted in the same style and look.

[Chris]

Excellent video Helen, thanks for sharing. I never thought of playing with the profiles in LR during the B&W creation process.

I find Nik Silver Effex pro very useful for landscapes and nature pictures.

With PS Elements, I find using a gradient map much better than desaturating. Desaturating might convert different colours of similar density to the same tone of B&W. A gradient map will show different colours as different tones of B&W.


One adventurous method of converting to B&W in Elements is using a gradient map with a levels and Hue/Adjustment slider. It can create some quite dramatic effects while changing the levels and hue sliders.


Kind regards
Chris

[hmca]

Jul 3, 2022 14:26:47 GMT michelb said:

There is a situation where you don't care about ultimate B&W conversions with many layers and dodge and burn:  it's if you want to produce an homogenous version of a relatively big batch of files. In that case, I open the batch in ACR, apply the 'auto' setting to all and click 'Done'. Now the selected items in the organizer will automatically open in ACR whether they are raws or jpegs. I select all and try the various B&W profiles on a test item. Then, I use the 'Save' butoon (older versions) or the 'convert and save...' icon on top right (recent versions) to save the files as independent DNG files. You can even choose the 'lossy' option to get much smaller DNGs.

The organizer can batch export those DNGs to your preferred file formats, jpeg, psd, tiff, png...

The batch processes are very fast, you don't overwrite your originals nor your best color version. And the most important is that all files are converted in the same style and look.

Thanks for sharing your method for batch processing, Michel. An important addition to this thread.

[hmca]

Jul 3, 2022 15:16:21 GMT Chris said:

One adventurous method of converting to B&W in Elements is using a gradient map with a levels and Hue/Adjustment slider. It can create some quite dramatic effects while changing the levels and hue sliders.

Thanks for sharing and the accompanying attachment, Chris.

It is nice to see the recent helpful additions to this thread.