No 2. How I Convert To Black And White
Black-and-white photography is as powerful today as it was when colour photography was just a distant dream. A different set of skills are required when working with black and white, as the absence of colour means the interplay of shape and contrast must work harder to tell the story or set the mood, but when it works, it's very effective.
Some cameras have a dedicated black-and-white mode, but even if yours doesn't, you can still work in black and white. In fact, it often works better to shoot in colour and convert later on. Photoshop offers a breathtaking array of techniques for converting colour to black and white (or more correctly, greyscale), and these enable you to control the process with a degree of finesse that would be difficult to match in the field.
HOW I CONVERT TO BLACK AND WHITE
De saturation Method
The easiest way of converting colour to black and white is to convert the mode to gray scale (Image > Mode > Gray scale). This is okay, but there are better alternatives. One method is desaturation—removing the visible colour information but maintaining the RGB status of the file. This means that if you wanted to add a tint later you could do so without having to change colour mode again. Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (or press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + U). The problem with desaturation is that it often delivers a flat, uninspiring rendition.
The method I use in Adobe Photoshop CS3 is the Black and White filter.
As if there weren't enough ways to change an image to black and white using Photoshop, the release of CS3 has introduced another one. So, instead of desaturating, converting to LAB and stripping off the L channel, using a black-white gradient map, or even the tried and trusted Channel Mixer, there's the all new Black and White filter, offering six colour components to fiddle with in your search for monochrome magic.
1. Run the filter by going to Image > Adjustments > Black & White. This brings up the six colour components, plus a selection of presets. The presets simulate the effect of using red, yellow, green and blue, plus infra-red simulation and high contrast filters, by which it means that the filter colour is increased and those opposite it are reduced right down
2. How the filter works is that the higher the percentage each colour element has, the brighter and whiter those elements will be in black and white in the image. Fortunately it all operates on the fly so as soon the filter is activated, the image changes to mono, according to the values set. It's worth looking at some of the presets to see what effect they will have - like the infra-red preset.
3. The converted image is usually good, but usually not quite punchy enough, So I use, Curves and Levels to add a little more contrast.