Shop Owner, Machene Yehuda Market, Jerusalem DSC_3544

Hello Meir,

You show the self-confidence of this gentleman quite nicely.

I believe the shooting angle plays a significant role in this context.

How do you make the conversion into B&W; desaturating, mixing channels or...?

I ask because I liked the approach here very much; a wide tonal range with a proper skin tone...

I have Photo Shop "Elements" which came with my computer purchased in 2003. It is only the "Elements" I do not know about this "desaturating" "mixing channels" etc. and sure that my photoshop Elements Version does not have these features. I convert to BW with.... Enhance->Adjust Color->Remove Color. I adjust histogram for contrast and burn a hot spot if I have to.That's it; that is all that I know and have in my photoshop. You taught me to shoot in Raw and that helps a lot. Thank you for compliment.

What are the principles/meaning of "desaturation" and "channel mixing"?

A very lovel Black and white image that has been executed very well. Rated.

Thank you very much for visitng and commenting

>What are the principles/meaning of "desaturation" and "channel mixing"?

I guess (only guess!) that "remove color" is more or less the same as "desaturate".As you know, the images that are displayed on screen are coded as R(ed)G(reen)B(lue) values for each pixel. The desaturate (and presumably the "remove color") operations calculate a "proper" gray value for each pixel based on their RGB values and display the result as a gray value. So, a pixel that is 255,255,255 becomes simply white and another with 0,0,0 becomes black. They are displayed like that for color images as well; so what was special about this operation, you might ask! Let us take these two values to show the point: 200,192,36 & 187,180,41. Which one of these two RGB values is a darker (or, lighter) shade of grey? The software, calculates the grey values based on the above values and takes the "green" channel data more into account. (I do not remember the exact formula). In the film days, some people were putting a green or yellow filter in front of the lens to increase the contrast of B&W films. That and the fact that our eyes more sensitive to green makes the above (green-channel biased) approach understandable.

Now, the "channel mixer" tool (available in many programs) makes "you" in charge! You decide whether the reds or blues should effect the final result more. For a certain image you can choose to get more reds and less greens or blues or any combination of those. This may resemble (not exactly, by the way) placing a cyan or red filter in front of the lens while shooting B&W. For example, this tool allows you to play with the color (well, "tone") of the shirt of a gentleman. With a couple of clicks, his shirt may become dark or light (depending on the setting and the original color of the shirt) while his face remains almost the same! The same, of course, goes for the background; darker or lighter...

I believe a simple operation like "remove color" is fine for most situations. However, one may like the ability to fine tune and/or change the final tonality using "channel mixer" as a more flexible and refined alternative for an occasional photo.

thank you very much. You know much more about photography than do I. My photoshop is only the basic and I do not have these features. Sounds like I should wish I did. Natural skin tones are most difficult for me in photoshop. In fact if natural in the original I usually toss out the photo.

After reading your help, perhaps there are ways in my photoshop elements only to use some of these ideas, especially in skin tones.