Flexible BW convertion - new method

[sergey-afanasyev]

<p>Playing with adobe CS3 Iﾒve accidentally come up with a new idea of

converting a photo to BW. There are lots of methods provided by many users of

photoshop. However, I found my method very flexible to control shadow and

highlight areas.</p>

 

<p>The first thing you need to do is to convert an image to grayscale. To do this,

go to image>mode>grayscale. A new message will appear (optionally). Hit

discard. This will get you a BW image. Then, go again to the image

menu>mode>duotone. Here you can choose a desired type of toning (duotone,

tritone or quadtone). You may try experimenting with different of these, but Iﾒll

describe duotone type.</p>

 

<p>The 1st ink color should be black (we convert the image to BW). Click on the

ink 2 color icon. You will have a color libraries window opened. In the right upper

corner youﾒll find a picker button ﾖ hit it. A color you need to choose is gray. This

step allows you to choose the color in a diapason of white to black. The darker the

color the more contrast image youﾒll have. If you are satisfied with the result, click

ok. Now you can see that this method provide high extent of flexibility of

controlling the contrast of the image, but in fact, this is yet not the end. </p>

 

<p>Having chosen the color, youﾒll see the pictograms with curves near the color

icon in the left. Clicking it (whether ink 1 or ink 2) youﾒll have a duotone curve

window. Here you can change the shape of the curve controlling to what extent a

color affects the image. Remember to check a histogram. If you have lost some

areas of shadow or light it is possible to recover them, using shadow/highlight

tool.</p>

 

<p>If you have any critiques, comments, or additions to this method, I will be glad

to read them.</p>

[neil_parker]

Try the channel mixer in CS3. It will give you far more control of B/W tonality, because

it allows you to lighten or darken any specific color at will. Remember how you used to

add a yellow or red filter to darken the sky with B/W film? Or a red filter to smooth out

skin tones? With the channel mixer you have all this as well as the ability to control

contrast. CS3 is a big jump in usuability of the channel mixer compared to older

versions of photoshop because the sliders are 'interactive' with each other, much less

trial and error. You can still duotone after conversion to greyscale with the channel

mixer.

[will king]

Actually, if you have CS3 the B&W tool gives even more control over tonal range than does the Channel Mixer.

[sergey-afanasyev]

For sure, i know all these methods. And CS3 undoubtedly provides new ways of convertion. I agree with Will that B&W tool gives more control than channel mixer. Even though i decided to share this method that i've tried

[neil_parker]

"the B&W tool gives even more control over tonal range than does the Channel Mixer"

 

You're right of course, I had those 2 tools confused in my mind having used the

channel mixer for so many years.

[ronald_moravec1]

Make the black and white the the new conversion furnished in CS3 and apply the duo tone later and you have the best of all worlds.