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DPChallenge Forums >> Tutorials >> Methods of Black and White Conversion
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Showing posts 26 - 46 of 46, (reverse)
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 10/09/2006 03:43:54 PM · #26
All - and I mean all - of my black and whites are converted using only desturation. Please have a look at them and see what you think, because I believe this attitude that 'de-sat is bad' is utterly flawed.

It depends of course on the effect you're trying to achieve, but for anything approaching the real I would say 'ignore all these spurious methods, and learn to photograph for black and white in the first place.'

It's important, however, to de-saturate in RAW processing, or at least in a 12- or 16- or higher-bit image. 8-bit is simply not enough to resolve mono properly, and the difference will show through even in a conversion afterwards: the graduation of tones will be subtley different - more clumsy looking, more inelegant.

E
 10/09/2006 03:56:24 PM · #27
Great stuff, thanks for all the B&W insight
 10/09/2006 04:13:53 PM · #28
Great thread and thanks for the tutorial Leroy! This has been a complete mystery to me; and I look forward to improving my B/W images.
 10/09/2006 04:22:33 PM · #29
Yeah, thanks! I'm glad I stumbled across this.
 10/09/2006 04:26:57 PM · #30
Originally posted by e301:
...learn to photograph for black and white in the first place...


So, Ed...any insight or tips for this that you can share with us? I know that I, for one, would surely appreciate it.
 10/18/2006 12:14:57 PM · #31
ok, I have 2 questions:

- how come I can't use darker tones for duotone? I always have to use black & the lightest tone of a color (does this make sense?)

- Is there an easier way to choose a color for duotones? right now I have to pick a color in that weird vertical color-picker thing..

:S

Message edited by author 2006-10-18 12:15:32.
 10/18/2006 12:39:47 PM · #32
Hanneke, technically you don't have to use black at all for a Duotone conversion. You can choose any colors you'd like.



As far as the second question, you have two choices how to choose colors. The dialog you are describing is the color libraries. If you click the "picker" button from that dialog, you can use the color picker instead. But if you use the color picker to choose colors, you will have to name the colors in the duotones dialog.


10/18/2006 12:42:32 PM · #33
So instead of black I could choose gray when it's too dark?

hehe, why didn't I think of that :P

thanks a lot Leroy!
 10/18/2006 12:44:59 PM · #34
Originally posted by biteme:
So instead of black I could choose gray when it's too dark?


Yup, sure can and you can also change the curves of each ink color by clicking on the curve beside the color in the duotones dialog. By doing that you, can choose how much black is used.



Message edited by author 2006-10-18 12:58:58.
 10/18/2006 01:03:58 PM · #35
bump for biteme
 10/18/2006 01:39:13 PM · #36
Originally posted by e301:
All - and I mean all - of my black and whites are converted using only desturation. Please have a look at them and see what you think, because I believe this attitude that 'de-sat is bad' is utterly flawed.

It depends of course on the effect you're trying to achieve, but for anything approaching the real I would say 'ignore all these spurious methods, and learn to photograph for black and white in the first place.'

It's important, however, to de-saturate in RAW processing, or at least in a 12- or 16- or higher-bit image. 8-bit is simply not enough to resolve mono properly, and the difference will show through even in a conversion afterwards: the graduation of tones will be subtley different - more clumsy looking, more inelegant.

E


This is presuming that if you were shooting B/W film you'd never use a filter, like yellow/orange/red to adjust the sky tonalities in a landscape shot, for instance. The beauty of using channel mixer is that it is essentially a box of filters that allow you to adjust the relative tonalities of the rendering of different colors.

For set-up shots I find simple desaturation can work very well indeed, but for landscapes I nearly always use the channel mixer so I can control my skies precisely.

R.
 10/18/2006 03:13:26 PM · #37
I really like this method using calculations, but it takes a lot of playing with to get what you want.
//news.deviantart.com/article/17530/

Someone here turned me on to this but I forgot who.
 10/18/2006 03:20:50 PM · #38
Originally posted by stdavidson:

A couple other weapons to add to your B&W arsenal...

Tip 1:
One of the most well kept secrets in B&W conversion is the "Selective Color" adjustment layer.

"Selective Color" has black, white and neutral adjustment selections and because there are sliders in each for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black it can be used to great effect fine tuning the tonality of your B&W. Works well in Luminosity or Normal mode.


shhhhh - that's my secret weapon.
Results are amazing if done in small steps, never going over 20% at a time.

Selective color adjustment is also the best way imo to fine-tune skin color.
Skin too red? Selective adjustment in red channel and add some yellow to get a natural look.
 10/18/2006 03:28:15 PM · #39
Originally posted by LoudDog:
I really like this method using calculations, but it takes a lot of playing with to get what you want.
//news.deviantart.com/article/17530/

Someone here turned me on to this but I forgot who.


That's fascinating. I have never heard of this. I was just playing with it, some amazingly complex results can be had. However, bear in mind that it requires changing the blending mode of one of the layers, so it is not basic-legal.

R.
 11/28/2006 01:26:54 PM · #40
I found a good video tutorial here:

Photoshopp TV Ep. 54

It uses Channel Mixer and Hue/Sat to adjust B&W conversions.

This guy knows what he is doing.

Message edited by author 2006-11-28 13:29:45.
 11/28/2006 04:19:44 PM · #41
I used to tone using duotones, but now I just use curves after converting to a true black and white image in channel mixer.

I do occasionally use multiple layers to get the tones where I want them, but most of the time I'm doing something fairly straight forward. I like the toning to bring some life back into an image that a pure greyscale often lacks (e.g., warmer highlights, cooler midtones, to get some subtle colour depth into the image - much like many traditional B&W prints.
 12/18/2006 12:09:52 PM · #42
New pictures



This was desaturated 100% in ps, in colour balance add 12 red add 8 green add 12 yellow

Bruce Smith's web site
 12/18/2006 12:25:09 PM · #43
In GIMP you can access the channel mixer by going to Filters --> Colors --> Channel Mixer...

There is a good tutorial on how to do B&W conversions in GIMP here:
//gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

The channel mixer in GIMP is similar to the one in Photoshop. You just have to explicitly say to output to monochrome.

Originally posted by saracat:
Leroy -
THANK YOU!!
:)

I'm not sure I can use the channel mixer method in the GIMP (unless somebody can explain it to me?), but using the hue/sat. adjustment layers works beautifully. I would never have thought to adjust the hue of a layer to fiddle with B&W!!

Thanks again,
Sara


*edit to to reference specific text*

Message edited by author 2006-12-18 12:25:54.
 07/10/2007 02:34:11 PM · #44
Good thread to link to this tutorial.
//www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=637399
 01/27/2008 01:32:47 AM · #45
After struggling with BW conversions in Irfanview - adjusting - even sometimes swapping - colours before conversion, I'm finally starting on the Gimp. Just used the channel mixer, and wow, what a difference. Thanks for the direction (had no idea it was there).
 09/15/2013 02:11:25 PM · #46
this really is awesome

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by LoudDog:
I really like this method using calculations, but it takes a lot of playing with to get what you want.
//news.deviantart.com/article/17530/

Someone here turned me on to this but I forgot who.


That's fascinating. I have never heard of this. I was just playing with it, some amazingly complex results can be had. However, bear in mind that it requires changing the blending mode of one of the layers, so it is not basic-legal.

R.
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