ways to do B&W in photoshop

[otispunkmeyer]

i know there are plenty of ways in PS to get a good black n white.

me being the tool i am, shot out all my old magazines (photog ones obviously) in a rage of room cleaning madness, and then realise all the how to's were in them! i might still have the discs with the tutorials on, somewhere. I hope!

well the only one i can remember is just to desaturate the image....which is probably the easiest thing to do this side of telling your camera to do it for you.

what are the other ways?

(also as a side note, why the hell does my 400D let me use BW mode when shooting RAW?...when you download the pic its still in colour because the cameras processing hasnt been used. seems a bit pointless to me lol)

Edit:

Along with different methods of producing B&W in photoshop i have some other questions

1) what is the difference between producing a HDR and blending exposures? (related to photomatix)

2) what on earth does tone mapping do?

3) can some one explain how those tone/colour curves work and how to use them?

 

[OdiN]

I don't think editing in RAW is any good for B&W. You can desaturate, but that just leaves the image looking very flat.

I could write up a tutorial on B&W conversions. There are many ways to do it, and they don't always necessarily work best for the same image.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

that would megorific if you could write up a tutorial, that is if you have the time and dont mind.

yeah i tried just turning the saturation to zero and it does make things look very flat and lifeless. what i meant about RAW was that i didnt turn the saturation down in the RAW converter in CS2, i meant that i loaded a file, perhaps played randomly with the sliders till it looked like i wanted it, then opened it. then jimmied about with turning it B&W

if your going to write some tips on doing B&W could you also explain what the hell those tone/color curve things do! and the little adjustment sliders on histograms! thanks!

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
that would megorific if you could write up a tutorial, that is if you have the time and dont mind.

yeah i tried just turning the saturation to zero and it does make things look very flat and lifeless. what i meant about RAW was that i didnt turn the saturation down in the RAW converter in CS2, i meant that i loaded a file, perhaps played randomly with the sliders till it looked like i wanted it, then opened it. then jimmied about with turning it B&W

if your going to write some tips on doing B&W could you also explain what the hell those tone/color curve things do! and the little adjustment sliders on histograms! thanks!

I likely do B&W conversions in a very different way than you do. It's quite involved. But if I have time I will try to write something up.

 

[virtuamike]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i know there are plenty of ways in PS to get a good black n white.

me being the tool i am, shot out all my old magazines (photog ones obviously) in a rage of room cleaning madness, and then realise all the how to's were in them! i might still have the discs with the tutorials on, somewhere. I hope!

well the only one i can remember is just to desaturate the image....which is probably the easiest thing to do this side of telling your camera to do it for you.

what are the other ways?

I use channel mixer.

Here's a good resource -
Linky

And some basic settings to start from if you're trying to emulate types of film -
Linky

You'll probably want to adjust contrast afterwards.

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
(also as a side note, why the hell does my 400D let me use BW mode when shooting RAW?...when you download the pic its still in colour because the cameras processing hasnt been used. seems a bit pointless to me lol)

Do you really want your camera to handle your B&W conversions?

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
Edit:

Along with different methods of producing B&W in photoshop i have some other questions

1) what is the difference between producing a HDR and blending exposures? (related to photomatix)

HDR works best for images where there's no movement and you're simply trying to extend range. Blending works best when you're trying to merge multiple exposures, though not necessarily across the entire frame.

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
2) what on earth does tone mapping do?

Easier if I show you -
Linky

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
3) can some one explain how those tone/colour curves work and how to use them?

Sorry, can't help you there, haven't moved into curves on individual channels yet.

 

[destrekor]

maybe this is the digital photo editing noob in me... but how do these fancy methods of converting a color photo to B&W differ from the simple tool of making it B&W in PS itself? I don't know the menu that tool is found in, but it was one-step and produced photos that, to me, looked great in B&W. Could I have played with them and changed the contrast and enhanced them some? Sure... but they way they turned out seemed to be how they would have been had I taken them in B&W in the first place.

 

[yhelothar]

My favorite way to do B&W is to use the calculations(image menu) feature in photoshop. It allows you to blend two color channels, with the various blending modes. This allows you to perfect your skin tones and contrast.