Photoshop CS2 Techniques for Black & White Conversion

leinsterman

Hi,

Does anyone have any good techniques for acieving good B&W conversion with CS2 ?

Either with RAW or JPEG ...

... Apart from simple Desaturation that is ... anyone can do that :rolleyes:

Fenster

Channel Mixer tool, click "Monochrome" and adjust until satisfied. I've entirely gone over to converting my photos to black and white with it as it gives a huge amount of control. Here's one from a few days ago:

Fajitas!

Ali gives a pretty good tutorial on masks if She's about.

As basic as desaturating sounds, if you use it wisely it's as good as any.

Personally, if doing gig shots, or a pretty repetitive task, I'll use Colour Balance, Desaturate and Dodge & Burn, the dodge and burn replacing levels, but everyone has their own little tricks.

Carrigman

Here's a list of Channel Mixer settings to duplicate the effect of various B&W films:

Agfa 200X: 18,41,41
Agfapan 25: 25,39,36
Agfapan 100: 21,40,39
Agfapan 400: 20,41,39
Ilford Delta 100: 21,42,37
Ilford Delta 400: 22,42,36
Ilford Delta 400 Pro & 3200: 31,36,33
Ilford FP4: 28,41,31
Ilford HP5: 23,37,40
Ilford Pan F: 33,36,31
Ilford SFX: 36,31,33
Ilford XP2 Super: 21,42,37
Kodak Tmax 100: 24,37,39
Kodak Tmax 400: 27,36,37
Kodak Tri-X: 25,35,40

And these basic ones:
Normal Contrast: 43,33,30
High Contrast: 40,34,60
and at last a generic BW: 24,68,8. 50,50,0 and 25,75,0 are good too.

Have fun!

Carrigman

Fenster

Nice cheatsheet, what constant is employed there?

Fajitas!

*copy and pasted*

Cheers

Carrigman

Fenster wrote:

Nice cheatsheet, what constant is employed there?

No constant other than CS2, Channel Mixer, Monochrome.

leinsterman

Carrigman wrote:

Have fun!

I certainly will ... thanks for the info ...

leinsterman

Tried to Ilford pro settings on a pic I took, nice result -

5uspect

You can get some nice B&W conversions by switching from RGB to LAB colour space (Image>mode>Lab colour). You can delete the a and b channels and levels/curves adjust as desired.

Karoma

I quite like using Calculations to convert.

dazftw

Image>Mode>Grayscale
Then
Image>Adjustments>Curves.. to suit your needs

I also use the channel mixer too btw

I think it works quite well, (example)

(1)


(2)

Dimy

I use a plugin called BW-Plus I think. It can add the effects of a red, blue or green filter. After that I play with the contrast a bit.

il gatto

You could use just the red, green or blue channel on their own. It's a bit basic, but often on of the three is perfect. Greyscale quick and easy to. But really the channel mixer is the way to go. If you can't get the look you want with it, It's time to go reshoot the picture:) It's amazing. I love fiddling around with it. One thing to be aware of however, is that when using the channel mixer, is that the mix of red, green and blue light should always come in or around the 100 mark when added. If you stray too far from this figure, you may have a picture which looks good on the monitor, but when you print it, it can be too dark or over exposed looking. You can get some nice solarized looks though.:cool:

leinsterman

Carrigman wrote:

Here's a list of Channel Mixer settings to duplicate the effect of various B&W films:

Agfa 200X: 18,41,41
Agfapan 25: 25,39,36
Agfapan 100: 21,40,39
Agfapan 400: 20,41,39
Ilford Delta 100: 21,42,37
Ilford Delta 400: 22,42,36
Ilford Delta 400 Pro & 3200: 31,36,33
Ilford FP4: 28,41,31
Ilford HP5: 23,37,40
Ilford Pan F: 33,36,31
Ilford SFX: 36,31,33
Ilford XP2 Super: 21,42,37
Kodak Tmax 100: 24,37,39
Kodak Tmax 400: 27,36,37
Kodak Tri-X: 25,35,40

And these basic ones:
Normal Contrast: 43,33,30
High Contrast: 40,34,60
and at last a generic BW: 24,68,8. 50,50,0 and 25,75,0 are good too.

Have fun!

Carrigman

I tried these settings and they work pretty well but I have one question ... if you are simulating film with higher ISO rating ... do you also need to add film grain ?

DIZZYKEVIL

create a new layer and fill with black. Change the blending mode for this layer to colour. You now can manipulate your rgb or cmyk channels to get your desired result. This method is completely lossless and therefore the best.

AlisonB

Calculations and solid color

bp_me

My method is prehaps a little more long winded, but anyway...


- mode --> lab colour
- from channels panel select "lightness"
- mode --> grey scale (follow the prompts)
- channels panel, ctrl click on the thumbnail of the image
- select menu, inverse
- layers menu --> new fill layer, solid colour then pick black from this dialogue
- adjust the opacity of the fill layer as required

(I have an action set up for this, so it's just one click for me)

- adding a levels or curves layer after that will help with the desired effect.