Better B&W images

LK
Posted By
Leen_Koper
Jun 15, 2004
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144
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6
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Closed
Yesterday I attended a few short photoshop seminars, took notes and this was the trick I tried today. It is a way to introduce B&W filter effects, like red and green filters in a very, very easy way.
Even I could understand it.

Open your image.
Create a duplicate layer.
Desaturate the layer -100%.
Set the layer mode to "color".
Activate the background in the layers menue.
Go to hue/saturation and play with the hue slider, make further smaller adjustments with the saturation slider.

You will be surprised about these effects of changing the tonal scale.

Leen
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Grant_Dixon
Jun 15, 2004
Leen

This sounds a whole lot like something I ran into about two weeks ago

http://www.escrappers.com/gray.html

Grant
JH
Jim_Hess
Jun 15, 2004
I saw a similar technique that I have been experimenting with.

Open image, create new hue/saturation layer, set mode to color. Create another new hue/saturation layer, slide the saturation control to the far left. Do all of your adjustments on the first, or middle hue/saturation layer.

I just did a quick comparison of the two different methods, and I might be wrong but I felt as though I had just a little more control using the method I have described here. However, either method produces some stunning results.
JB
John_Burnett_(JNB)
Jun 15, 2004
Jim’s method, which I got from the Russel Brown site (http://www.russellbrown.com/body.html and click on ‘Seeing in B&W’), is also what I use most often. Sometimes I’ll add a third layer and check ‘colorize’. This top layer, when hue and opacity have been adjusted, provides ‘toning’.
JH
Jim_Hess
Jun 15, 2004
Yes, John, that is the same place I learned of the technique. I haven’t tried the third layer as you described. But that sounds like an interesting idea.
SB
Stu_Bloom
Jun 15, 2004
Activate the background in the layers menue.

Go to hue/saturation and play with the hue slider, make further smaller adjustments with the saturation slider.

Methinks it would be better to activate a second duplicate layer than the background and make the hue changes on it. I NEVER make changes directly to the background layer.

I like this method for creating B&W:

1. Create a levels layer at the top of the layer stack. Don’t do anything with it.

2. Create a hue/saturation layer over the levels layer.

3. Go back to the levels layer and adjust the individual R G and B channels with the midtone slider. I find starting with R=0.4 and B=1.6 usually gets me pretty close, at least with skin tones; I then adjust G to taste, perhaps tweaking the R and B settings too.

4. For even more control over tone, use a curves layer instead of or in addition to the levels layer. (You obviously need either full PS or one of the Elements add-ons for this.)

(You obviously need to have either fulklk
SP
Stan Person
Jun 16, 2004
A similar technique I’ve used is to create a levels adjustment layer (leave it alone for now, just OK popup), then a hue/saturation adjustment layer. Crank the saturation all the way down on the hue/sat layer. Then go back to the levels layer and "fiddle" with the levels adjustments on each of the red, blue and green "channels".

Stan

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