Black & White Trick

GD
Posted By
Grant_Dixon
Jun 22, 2004
Views
135
Replies
7
Status
Closed
Have you ever converted to Black & White and realized a colour need adjusting before you got there? So you have to go back and do it all over again. But you are never sure of the outcome. Photoshop has colour channels and that is a real life saver but Element’s doesn’t.

Today, while tinkering this is what I found.

1) Choose an image you want to work with
2) Create a new layer
3) Fill the new layer with white.
4) Set the blend to colour and you now have a Black and White
5)You can now return to the underlying layer and by using Hue/Saturation and
selecting a colour channel you now have more control over your black and white.

Grant

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JD
Juergen_D
Jun 22, 2004
Grant,
This is truly amazing: just as you posted this I was looking at the Russell Brown tutorial.
www.russellbrown.com/tips/pdf/colortoB&W.pdf
There’s also a QT movie somewhere.

Juergen
SB
Stu_Bloom
Jun 22, 2004
You can accomplish the same thing by adding a Hue/Saturation layer and setting Saturation to -100. The white layer set to Color tends to lighten the tone just a bit in the shadows. In a shot I have with a highlight RGB value at 252, 252, 250 and a shadow value at 9, 10, 4, for example, adding a Hue/Saturation layer produces 251, 251, 251, and 11, 11, 11 and the white layer method 252, 252, 252 and 14, 14, 14.
BG
Byron Gale
Jun 22, 2004
Grant,

I’ve noticed that the color-fill layer can be any color which has equal RGB values, even 0-0-0 black, and this will work the same. Neat trick!!

Byron
J
JudyP
Jun 22, 2004
I tried the trick but it didn’t appear to work as well as Scott Kelby’s trick–are you familiar with it? Photo, then levels layer, then hue/sat layer in which you desaturate all the way. Then double click on the levels icon and tinker with each individual channel. Then flatten image. From his book The PSE Book for Digital Photographers. It works really well for me!
GR
Geoff Realname
Jun 29, 2004
I’ve only just discovered this group and already a problem is solved! Suddenly my day seems brighter (and has far better tonal control) 🙂
DF
DUN_FERMLINE
Jun 29, 2004
GRANT, SORRY TO BE A LITTLE NIEVE. YOUR STEP 4)SET THE BLEND TO COLOR. I AM AFRAID I AM LOST HERE (I AM USING PSE2)
JIM D
BG
Byron Gale
Jun 29, 2004
Jim,

In Step 2 you have created a new layer, and in Step 3 you have filled it with white.

For Step 4, with your new, white layer selected in the Layers Palette, click the Blending Mode box at the top of the Layers Palette (it probably says Normal), and choose "Color" from the list… it is almost at the bottom of the list.

HTH,

Byron

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