b & w conversions?

even though i have a digital camera now i still really enjoy just doing black & w photography. i always thought that you just can put the pic on grayscale in photoshop and that would be a good b & w conversion(i dunno) but i've seen around on these forums people talking about "good conversions". And i just dont know what their talking about.

so how exactly do i get a better "b& w conversion"? I just have no idea how to do that, i do have photoshop. so if anyone could clue in a "noob" at digital photography, i would greatly appreciate it. :D

thanks anyone who answers this post.

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Originally Posted by F-15_Flyer

even though i have a digital camera now i still really enjoy just doing black & w photography. i always thought that you just can put the pic on grayscale in photoshop and that would be a good b & w conversion(i dunno) but i've seen around on these forums people talking about "good conversions". And i just dont know what their talking about.

so how exactly do i get a better "b& w conversion"? I just have no idea how to do that, i do have photoshop. so if anyone could clue in a "noob" at digital photography, i would greatly appreciate it. :D

thanks anyone who answers this post.

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I got a good tip a while back. Rather than converting to grayscale, look at each RGB layer separately and use the one that looks best to you. This is almost always better, at least to my eye, than the grayscale conversion.

Yes, using the channel mixer usually gives pretty good results compared to the grayscale method or just desaturating the image. There were some threads a while back that went into more detail so with a little searching you should be able to find some more info.

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Originally Posted by Michael Fanelli

I got a good tip a while back. Rather than converting to grayscale, look at each RGB layer separately and use the one that looks best to you. This is almost always better, at least to my eye, than the grayscale conversion.

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Hey could you be a lil more specific? I tried this but it would only let me save as a PSD. How do you do this so that you can save in jpeg, tiff ect...?

I use the Channel Mixer in Photoshop CS too, with that here's the steps:

1. Open image
2. Click Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer
3. At the bottom left of the window that pops up, click Monochrome
4. Adjust the R, G and B channels to get the effect you want, but the total should add up to 100%. You can use negative numbers (example R = 190, G = 140, B = -200 depending on the effect you want.
5. Click OK and Save As. (Save As is very important, this way you save a copy of the image as a B&W rather than losing the original!).

If you're using something different than PSCS, the steps will probably be a little different, but this should get you thru it.


Almo, as long as you're in an 8-bit image, you will be able to save as a jpeg or any other file type. Check Mode to see if maybe you're in 16 bit. If you're in 16 bit, you won't be able to save as a jpeg. IMO, after you've done all of your PS work (especially levels) you can pretty safely convert to 8-bit. I don't think I'd do that to the original file in a lot of cases, but most prints should be just fine.

Folks, I found these links on the net which covers color to BW convertion. Great tips & tutorials.

Make sure to see them at:

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/d...ack_white.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/cg...=ST;f=5;t=1340

http://www.google.com/search?q=digit...-landscape.com

http://www.outbackphoto.com/workshop...nnelmixer.html

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7...rint_mac_2.htm

thanks for the help everyone. this helped me a lot!!

erich your last 4 links seem to not be working correctly.