January 30, 2005
Converting to Black & White
There are usually a gazillion different ways to do the same thing in Photoshop and it is no different for doing a conversion of a color photograph to black and white (B&W).
Here are 3 different ways to achieve this:
1) The most obvious and the worst method
Go to Image -> Mode ->GreyScale.
2) Better
Go to Image -> Mode-> LAB color. In the layers palette, turn off all layers except for the 'L' layer.
3) Best
Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Channel Mixer. Choose 'Monochrome' check box. Adjust the sliders for 'Red', 'Green' and 'Blue' till you like the image.
See the results for an image that I did the above using all the 3 methods above. Which one do you like?
Note, a good way to modify a B&W image is to the use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment tool and only modify the 'Contrast' slider to get the look you want.
Here are 3 different ways to achieve this:
1) The most obvious and the worst method
Go to Image -> Mode ->GreyScale.
2) Better
Go to Image -> Mode-> LAB color. In the layers palette, turn off all layers except for the 'L' layer.
3) Best
Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Channel Mixer. Choose 'Monochrome' check box. Adjust the sliders for 'Red', 'Green' and 'Blue' till you like the image.
See the results for an image that I did the above using all the 3 methods above. Which one do you like?
Note, a good way to modify a B&W image is to the use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment tool and only modify the 'Contrast' slider to get the look you want.
