#COLOR IMAGE CONVERT TO BLACK AND WHITE HOW TO#
#COLOR IMAGE CONVERT TO BLACK AND WHITE PROFESSIONAL#

To get the best results during the editing stage, start by shooting in RAW format and outputting your images as 16-bit TIFF files. Quick ways to convert black and white images on Macĭigitally converting a colored image to black and white gives you the advantage of complete control over the outcome. Let’s look at some effortless ways to convert images to black and white, selectively change the colors within a photo, and even colorize your old family pictures. Whether you are a photographer who wants to try a new style, a blogger wishing to be on top of trends, or you simply want to create a vintage atmosphere in your photo albums, turning an image to black and white is a useful skill to master. Grayscale images in design are said to improve its composition, making it easier to get a message across to the audience. Black and white photos, portraits especially, are often considered more impactful, because the absence of color removes distractions and lets the viewer focus on the actions and emotions displayed.

#COLOR IMAGE CONVERT TO BLACK AND WHITE PROFESSIONAL#

This in-depth eBook is designed to cover EVERYTHING you need to know about producing your own powerful and professional B&W images.The world looks different in monochrome, allowing us to see tone, texture, and light in new ways.

#COLOR IMAGE CONVERT TO BLACK AND WHITE HOW TO#

Knowing how to convert color to B&W with a working understanding of tone and contrast in post-processing is a very different story. Have you ever quickly converted your shots to black & white, hoping to make them “Better”? And the result was bland to say the least? This is a very common occurrence. He’s currently the director of content at the online photography school,. Kent DuFault is an author and photographer with over 35 years of experience. Virtually all post-processing applications that I’m aware of provide you with the option to customize your black and white conversion through individual color channels. Look at how my model stands out in the right picture versus the left! On the right is my custom conversion.īy taking control of the color-conversion process, I was able to post-process this photo to match my vision for the finished piece.

Here is my final black and white image after my custom conversion. It was giving the woman an unnatural appearance of being too light and with too much contrast. Now that I’m very close to my final conversion settings, I felt that the reds slider was too high. Increasing that to 189 brought some additional contrast to the shoreline. I wanted to increase the sky’s drama slightly, so I decreased the cyans slider from 60 to 0. The trees still did not have the visual weight that I wanted, so I increased the yellows slider to 199.

To direct my composition toward the woman, I will use the warm color sliders (red, yellow and magenta) to highlight her against the surrounding landscape. Note: If you go back and look at the original photo, you will see three primary colors in this shot: blue, green and an array of warm tones from the light of the setting sun. Step Three: I wanted to put some dramatic contrast around the woman, so I decreased the reds slider to 21. Step Two: I wanted to lighten the trees in the background. Step One: I darkened blue objects by reducing the blues slider to -30. In order to make this happen, I must take control of the conversion process. Finally, I like the background’s landscape to support the woman as the subject and provide a story element to the composition. I also wish the coastline to act as a leading line. I want the woman to be the primary subject. However, it doesn’t portray my vision for this picture. Using a black and white adjustment layer in Photoshop, the default conversion isn’t horrible. Let’s convert this beach sunset picture to a black and white photo! Let’s give this conversion thing a whirl! It’s effortless to see where the green, blue and red hues will fall into shades of gray. The above illustration is an excellent example of that concept. The goal of converting a color image to a black and white monochrome photo is that each hue of color should have its own tonal range.

You have a greater degree of control over where individual colors will fall upon the grayscale when converted. This fact is the advantage of creating your black and white photos in post-production. Note: Notice how the green and blue bars remained similar in tone no matter where the reds slider was positioned. The result is that anything red in the picture will convert to almost pure black. To illustrate the opposite point, while using the same image, I set the reds slider to -200. The result is that any red object in my image will convert to an almost pure white tone. When converting this file to monochrome, I pushed the reds slider to 300.

Color image convert to black and white