Great B&W Technique that I came up with and really like.

Before you read this... I want to tell you all a familar joke to help ward off any flaming.

 

How may photoshop experts does would it take to screw in a light bulb?

 

50... 1 to screw it in, and 49 to tell the countless other ways they would do it instead.

 

So on with the show.

 

I have tried many techniques in past for doing B&W, i.e. Channel Mixer, nik Color efex,

ect., ect.

 

So here is something different I tried going along with the thinking of the way the nik filter

works.

 

When shooting raw, desaturate the image and then adjust it using the white balance.

Some very cool effects can be seen real time at in a large representation. I was able to get

things out that I would have not normally with great ease. I suppose that one could

resaturate the image once you have found the white balance that creates the desired effect

so as to preserve the RGB data for further refinement using more traditional techniques.

 

Dont let my opening statement discourage discussion.. I want to learn from others.

Thanks everyone

 

Drew<div></div>

BTW... I would have liked to have had better composition... i.e. remove the brush from the

lower right but i could/should not get down in the creek bed. Instead it was taken at

200mm on a 10D.

If you do the technique with two hue/saturation layers, where the top one is set to

desaturate and the middle layer is set to Color, and then you play with the hue slider, but

only see the grayscale image change. (I didn't make up this method.) It's a photoshop

thing, not on the camera. But the effect is similar, right?

I guess I'll join the 49 and not do it this way. By the way, that's a magnificent copyright notice.

Amy,

 

Please accept my sincere thank you for commenting.

Well I tried your suggestion using the original file and could not

make that happen. It appears as though the hue shift was only having an effect on areas

with the color of the water and in the trees. The bridge and creek bed were essentially not

impacted. So no. i dont believe it is the same effect, but initally in my brain I thought it

might be. It will be interesting to see what others have to say. Feel free to use the color

image to try other aproaches that anyone may think work. It wa converted at around 8100

Kelvin.

 

Drew<div></div>

Edward,

 

Thanks for the comment on the WM. I am attaching the action I use if you want to use it

yourself. It first requires copying the watermarked file to the clipboard. It actually does

not work as well as I would like. I wish it would scale to the photo and orient correctly. It

is currently only set to work on 10D photos and you must select the horizontal or vertical

before using it. I have been told changing the scale to percent can accomplish this but I

have yet to make it work. As for how I made it. I used my Wacom tablet for the signature.

A vector shape using the custom shape tool (keyboard shortcut U) and then some text. I

got the rounded bevel using layer styles. I think I used some shade of grey for everything.

I know you may not be able to use the action but at least I am willing to share. At the very

least it contains my blending options, ect.

 

Thanks again

Here's my text-only action for doing the same thing; it fits the size of the image. You could duplicate the technique with your copyright image

 

also remember that you can script opening your copyright image, copying it to the clipboard, and then closing it and pasting

This B&W technique is mentioned briefly in Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS. With PSCS, you have a lot of flexibility with the adjustments you can make under the Calibrate tab for the hue and saturation of each channel before you convert the Raw file. It's a great technique, and easy to batch process. Thanks for bringing it up, Andrew.

Chris,

 

I could not open the file. but as for the scripting... I orginally had that in there but when

doing batch it is faster to just copy to the clipboard once. I usually batch the copyright for

my website Thanks for the post!

http://chriscombs.net/stuff/adding-text.zip might work better

I've just gotten into digital photography in the last six months and realize there are several ways to convert to B&W but the results seem pretty similar and that simply desaturating in PS seems as good as anything. I print in Black only mode on an Epson 1280 and get very good results. Am I missing something or is this just a matter of preference. I'm attaching a photo I shot last wekend with my D-70 and simply desaturated.<div></div>

The file uploaded to big for some reason. You can see it in more viewable size in my porfolio.

Paul,

 

Yes you are missing something. By simply desaturating you are losing all the advantage of

using the data in each color channel. It goeas back to the way people use red, yellow,

green, ect/ filters with film photographs.

 

Try this...

 

Add a Color Mixer adjustment layer, check off monochrome, and then use the sliders to

change the strength of each color channel. You should see the differences. In contrast,

ect.

 

In fact try to just desaturate the color image I have here in the forum and see if you notice

a difference from the b&w i posted. I would like to see what you and others come up with

posted along with their technique.

 

Thanks for contributing :)