Can someone tell me or direct me to information on the best method to convert a color image to B&W in PE2? My feeble efforts are not producing as good of results as I would expect.
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You may start by adding an Hue / Saturation adjustment layer, then move the saturation slider all the way to the left to remove all colors. This will desaturate the picture, but will not affect the original.
Do you have any books on Elements? I know both Kelby’s book and Lynch’s book talk about the subject at length.
I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never created a B&W out of a color image; but according to the authors, a simple desaturation is OK but there are better, more complicated ways of getting a better image. (Heck, I just spent last night going through Lynch’s Chapter 2, separating an image of a flower into its component red, green, and blue layers.)
Can someone tell me or direct me to information on the best method to convert a color image to B&W in PE2? My feeble efforts are not producing as good of results as I would expect.
Thanks for any help.
I worked with this for several weeks .. until I got the idea to "read a book". Lynches book gave me the best results. Do color seperations and generally using the green seperation for the B&W. Lynch talks about why in the book. Set the printer for grey scale and use the correct paper. It came out good the first time .. more tweeking to really understand what the results would be were in order .. Using this you can also tone the print. I found the reults better that using the toning within PE2.
I had to get and read the book .. over and over ..
good luck .. BTW i mentioned seperations .. this is not availble in PE2 but Lynches book has a CD with some good addins .. its got a curves add in as well ..
Another method is to create the Hue Saturation Layer and also a Levels Adjustment layer. On the H/S layer move you Saturation to -100, all the way to the left. Then open your levels layer and select the Red channel and make your adjustments. Do the same thing for the Green and Blue Channel.
If you have Richard Lynch’s Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements there are tools and discussion at length on BW conversions. hiddenpowers.com
Have you tried any of the previous suggestions and have any of them worked for you? I usually go enhance/adjust color/hue-saturation/move saturation from 0 to -100. Have you tried that? If so in what way is this not OK? You can get more contrast easily by using enhance/adjust brightness-contrast/levels/move the three little arrows or marks below the graph. Have you tried that? Then, Richard Lynch’s Hidden Power Tools offer the "curves" tool which is really neat for contrast adjustment. Do you know about this and have you tried it? Please give us some feed-back.
Hi Mark,
I went to that URL and did not see anything about black/white. Did I miss it?
I downloaded a freebie plug in that allows you to work with the RGB channels within the image. It is called ‘ convert ‘; RGB to grey ‘ and I use it all the time. I love the control I have with it. I can’t remember where I got it but if anyone wants it just mail me and i’ll send you the file to put in your filter plug ins. 56KB
Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up using the layers tip as it was described in the tutorial (link). It was pretty much what I wanted although it had me "tweeking" the different options for hours.
Carl, it’s on it’s way. Hope you can open the zip folder. I put it in the zip because another member seemed to have a problem with it just being sent as is…let me know if all goes well. Oh wait ! You use mac ?????
Just fine. I just got back from Kansas. We had Thanksgiving yesterday for my family there as that was the only day we could get together. It was a little sad as it was the first Thanksgiving without my Dad and we all miss him greatly. However, my siblings and I get along very well and the kids were in high spirits. A great photo opportunity and I took lots of pictures.
I have not been frequenting this forum as much because of other obligations, but I have decided I need to at least do a minimum of one Challenge as that is so much fun doing mine and then seeing what the talented folks like you come up with.
Carl, glad you are Ok and your family is well. Holidays are always a time when we remember those who have moved on to the higher space. I believe they have lots of room to look apon us and only sigh at what we don’t know. Yes, a challenge without you is not the same 😉
You won’t have any control over the balance of tones in your BW conversion if you simply use remove color. The suggested methods in this thread give considerable latitude on one’s adjustments.
But…if you are happy with the results using ‘remove color’, that’s all that matters.
Hi Mark, Thanks, I need to experiment with this, as it is new to me, and sure has neat results. I must try all the different ways to do the removal of color. As I really had no idea that there would be such a difference! Jane
