Wed, July 28th, 2004 by Brian Poulsen
Being a digital photographer, you don't have the luxury of the power of black and white film like Ilford.
That means you have to convert it to black and white yourself (unless your camera has that build in as a feature).
What I'm curious about is, what do you do when you convert your shots to black and white?
Are we talking a plain black and white gradient layer over the image, or is it just desaturated or something else?
What do you believe gives the best result/authentic feel and look?
July 28th, 2004 at 6:59 am
Digital B/W is more powerful than B/W films. You have the power to work with the colors chosing wich one to enhance.
Of course digital still needs better dinamic range.
You could use channel mixer to enhance some colors or other technics that use something similar.
If you are going B/W, better get color to work on.
July 28th, 2004 at 7:13 am
In most cases I use the channel mixer to convert my digital shots. There is much power in this tool because you can adjust the level of apearance of every rgb channel in the b/w image. When working with portraits its very easy to get clean skins by emphasizing the red channel. But, to be honest, I'm a digital photographer today and I didn't use b/w film for years. So I wont make any comparison because I really don't know whats possible today with b/w films.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:02 am
Personally I've never been able to get that rich tonality that is the signature of a great b&w print. As mentioned, the dynamic range is a problem.
fredmiranda.com offers a decent Photoshop action called Black and White Workflow Pro or something, which has a lot of options including:
- filters
- grain for different film speeds
- "increased" dynamic range
- channel mixer
Also, the "Convert RGB to Grayscale" action in Photoshop is useful - it's just the channel mixer with some default settings.
Once I've got your channels right, next usually an "s" shaped curved and maybe a little of the new "Shadow/Highlight" tool works for enhanced contrast.
If I am working with RAW files, I often find it practical to radically alter the colour balance at the time of processing. CaptureOne DSLR is helpful for this, as you can preview your grayscale results as you change the colour temperature etc.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:02 am
Personally I've never been able to get that rich tonality that is the signature of a great b&w print. As mentioned, the dynamic range is a problem.
fredmiranda.com offers a decent Photoshop action called Black and White Workflow Pro or something, which has a lot of options including:
- filters
- grain for different film speeds
- "increased" dynamic range
- channel mixer
Also, the "Convert RGB to Grayscale" action in Photoshop is useful - it's just the channel mixer with some default settings.
Once I've got your channels right, next usually an "s" shaped curved and maybe a little of the new "Shadow/Highlight" tool works for enhanced contrast.
If I am working with RAW files, I often find it practical to radically alter the colour balance at the time of processing. CaptureOne DSLR is helpful for this, as you can preview your grayscale results as you change the colour temperature etc.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:41 am
Hi all.
I use black and white film and digital. I scan film as an RGB file in order to get the most information and then I apply Channel Mixer and the eye dropper (blacks, whites, greys) to get the print where I want it. While in Levels and although in RGB, I use the information pallet (the numbers) in CMYK to guide me. Its a very complicated method used by pre-press people and which you can read about in the Dan Margolus Photoshop and Color pre-press books. I warn you, its a mind bender. Keep in mind that Photoshop was originally invented for pre-press people and not photographers.
To make it simple, try this. Go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer while your color RGB file/picture is open. Click Monochrome on the bottom left of the box. Then enter the number 33 in the Red, Green, and Blue percentage boxes. You want to get the numbers in all three boxes close to 100. So 33+33+33 is a good start. Click OK and open Levels. Look at the histogram and adjust. This is where you must do reading and practice.
Every other quick and easy method will throw away information. Sometimes thats OK if you want fast black and white. But if you are looking for true tones and getting all the information to work for you in a file, then ya gotta work on it.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:44 am
Hi all.
I use black and white film and digital. I scan film as an RGB file in order to get the most information and then I apply Channel Mixer and the eye dropper (blacks, whites, greys) to get the print where I want it. While in Levels and although in RGB, I use the information pallet (the numbers) in CMYK to guide me. Its a very complicated method used by pre-press people and which you can read about in the Dan Margolus Photoshop and Color pre-press books. I warn you, its a mind bender. Keep in mind that Photoshop was originally invented for pre-press people and not photographers.
To make it simple, try this. Go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer while your color RGB file/picture is open. Click Monochrome on the bottom left of the box. Then enter the number 33 in the Red, Green, and Blue percentage boxes. You want to get the numbers in all three boxes close to 100. So 33+33+33 is a good start. Click OK and open Levels. Look at the histogram and adjust. This is where you must do reading and practice.
Every other quick and easy method will throw away information. Sometimes thats OK if you want fast black and white. But if you are looking for true tones and getting all the information to work for you in a file, then ya gotta work on it.
July 28th, 2004 at 9:10 am
Hey Zee, you know any good online tutorials for Levels? I usually use Channel Mixer and Curves for B&W, and sometimes Brightness/contrast in the corners for some faux-vignetting. I'd be interested to see what results I'd get using Levels - I just don't know what I'm doing when I look at histograms!
July 28th, 2004 at 9:12 am
I'll add - hopefully not twice
- that it's a good idea to work in 16 bit mode as much as possible. This doesn't mean converting 8 bit images to 16 bit, that will get you nothing, but if you have a 16 bit tif or RAW file already then try to do all you tonal adjustments on it before converting it to 8 bit.
July 28th, 2004 at 9:13 am
I've read a variation on zee's excellent method that works almost as well (for example: http://babyurl.com/YX32PS ), but is much simpler:
Short version:
Create two Hue/Saturation adjustment layers on top of the background, the top layer with saturation set to zero and the middle one in Color blend mode. The trick is to drag the middle layer's Hue back and forth to find the best grays.
The long version:
Use the layers palette to add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Slide the saturation all the way down to zero.
Click the background layer and add another Hue/Saturation layer, which will appear between the background and first created layer.
Close the Hue/Saturation dialog and set blending mode to Color (it's the pop-up menu at top left). Then reopen the Hue/Saturation dialog (double click the adjustment layer) of that middle layer.
Watch the gray levels change as you slide the Hue slider back and forth. This changes which colors correspond to which gray levels. You can find dramatic and interesting images this way, and they all look natural.
This is from the excellent "Photoshop for Digital Photographers" but Martin Evening ( http://babyurl.com/gEnZ8e )
July 28th, 2004 at 9:15 am
James: levels are just simplified curves. Curves give you more control.
July 28th, 2004 at 9:28 am
Yup, I'll second that, the hue and saturation adjustment layers work very well.
July 28th, 2004 at 10:30 am
Thom has an interesting and useful article on Digital B&W. Check it out:
http://www.bythom.com/bandw.htm
July 28th, 2004 at 10:31 am
Thom has an interesting and useful article on Digital B&W. Check it out:
http://www.bythom.com/bandw.htm
July 28th, 2004 at 10:51 am
~I typically use the grey scale conversion when converting a color digi shot to b&w, but I normally shoot 90% b&w digi and film to begin w/, so there is not much converting....b&w is just what i prefer to shoot!~
July 28th, 2004 at 11:11 am
I've had success with this method: http://www.designbyfire.com/000100.html
July 28th, 2004 at 11:28 am
That channel mixer/levels seem to work quite well. Thanks for all the answers and solutions.
July 28th, 2004 at 11:56 am
buy a film camera! they cheap! ilford fp4+ is the most beautiful film ever.
July 28th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
I shoot b&w both on film and with RAW digital files I avoid JPEG like the plague because of artifacts and TIFF because it produces files that are way too big and get modified by the camera's settings. RAW gives you exactly what's been captured by the camera's sensors without any adulteration or modification.
For the latter, I use Photoshop's Channel Mixer exclusively along with the presets that come with Photoshop such as Greyscale Yellows and Greyscale Yellows2. I adjust the settings from there and sometimes make adjustments in the curves and levels settings, selecting and masking certain areas to dodge and burn (not using the dodge and burn tools but curves, gradients, etc.).
In addition, I also sometimes use the Channel Mixer with both color and b&w film that I've scanned. It seems to work well with negative color film and also b&w negatives that have particularly have low contrast density (see my shot of El Capitan on my photoblog for an example). Slide film is another story. I've tried these techniques with Kodachrome but it seems to resist good results.
July 28th, 2004 at 12:16 pm
I never use the black and white mode on my digital camera, as this leaves you with a lot less control over the final image - you're throwing away a lot of colour information that can be used to generate different greys in photoshop.
July 28th, 2004 at 1:18 pm
I really like Johny Ã…kerlund's B&W Photoshop action (http://www.jakerlund.net/page.php?id=6). It does the Channel Mixer step, the Hue/Saturation step, Curves, and optional tint tones for you, all in adjustment layers (well, not tint tones, those are regular layers) so you can fiddle with the result to fine tune it.
July 28th, 2004 at 3:43 pm
I use this film/filter adjustment Photoshop action:
http://www.nickgallery.com/web_pages/technical%207.htm
It gives you a fair amount of manual control over how the colors are translated into greyscale.
July 28th, 2004 at 4:51 pm
Here's a four page explanation of that same great "double hue adjustment layer" technique:
http://www.adobe.com/tips/phs8colorbw/
Awesome stuff.
July 29th, 2004 at 12:56 am
black and white
photoblogs.org soliciting techniques on converting digital photos to black and white. im pretty partial on the channel mixer, myself....
July 29th, 2004 at 1:21 am
i like to throw my images in the blender with a little soy ink and hit pulse a few times.
if that doesn't work i do the following. i resize the image first, then convert it to rgb channels, hit the highlights and shadows and basically tinker with it until i am satisfied. i might mess with a few other settings like sharpness a touch, but not usually. i have taken a few photoshop classes, but have found that tinkering and some nice music in the background, like sigur rós, produces the best results.
July 29th, 2004 at 1:07 pm
All of these suggestions work great, but there's one that hasn't been mentioned.
It's a little more fiddly, but i find the channel mixer a bit ham-fisted, and i want more control over which tones get empasized.
I take a well-exposed colour background layer and pull the channels apart and put each b&w version of the channel on it's own layer. (if the exposure is not so good, i might use only one or two of the channels) Then I adust curves and such to my hearts delight, duplicating layers and blending until I've got something with a bit of dimension.
If i want to add a bit of tone, i'll throw it on a separate layer so that it shows through the b&w layers. I like to keep the colour layer in place, because sometimes a hint of that colour imparts a nice tone too, or compensates for a dirty blue channel.
Not a useful workflow for batch processing, but it's great for tinkering with a print to get it just so.
July 30th, 2004 at 5:41 am
I get very good results from the Channel Mixer set to 24 R, 68 G and 8 B.
Sometimes I take those values up a bit to jack up the contrast.
July 30th, 2004 at 5:43 am
I get very good results from the Channel Mixer set to 24 R, 68 G and 8 B.
Sometimes I take those values up a bit to jack up the contrast.
July 30th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
*** buy a film camera! they cheap! ilford fp4+ is the most beautiful film ever. ***
great justin post. except that i'm bulk loading hp5+.
this discussion is mostly about converting color to b&w, which doesn't concern me so much. but i would like to know if any of you are getting satisfactory black and white prints.
i'm using a coolscan iv ed and an epson 2200. the 2200 does a pretty great job with color, but i haven't had a single black and white that could even begin to compare with what i can get in my darkroom (and i'm not that good in the darkroom).
July 30th, 2004 at 2:50 pm
I've given up on printing my digital photos at home. Maybe technology has progressed a bit since I last checked, but it's really hard to get nice values and archival quality from a home printer.
I'm happy to just use something like Ofoto, Shutterfly, or EZprints.
July 30th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
Also, one more thing that's both on-topic and off-topic...
As I was tweaking my hue/saturation adjustment layers (like was suggested above), I figured out that you could do the same for color images, too.
1) Bring up a color photo in Photoshop.
2) Create a single hue/saturation adjustment layer and just close it by clicking "ok".
3) Change that adjustment layer's mode to "luminosity".
4) Go back into the adjustment layer and tweak the hue.
This will change the luminosity of the colors without actually changing the colors.
July 30th, 2004 at 4:14 pm
When I want to convert a color digital image to black and white.. The first thing I do is adjust the histogram (Levels) to where it is color correct. Then if I want the effect, I manipulate the colors to simulate the use of black and white filters. Back when I used black and white film exclusively, I used a red, yellow and orange filter from time to time. When I have tweaked the digital colors to simulate the use of filters, I just go Convert Mode. Sometimes I give it a last tweak with Curves. Done.
Sometimes it takes a few tries with the Levels and Convert Mode to get it just right. A good color balanced, perfect exposure original makes it easiest. (my rule of thumb: A few seconds for a white balance during shooting can save several minutes per frame of color correction later.)
July 30th, 2004 at 5:01 pm
Ian: there are two options, both involving a printer with more than one dedicated grey ink.
Cheap and easy: something like the HP 7660 which has an optional three-shades-of-gray cartridge, and makes passible b&w up to 8x10. I have one and it's pretty good, though not remotely archival unless you use expensive HP paper and even then who knows.
Expensive and fiddly: get your Epson retrofitted with a third party greyscale pigment ink system and proprietary b&w driver (known as a "rip"). A few companies offer these systems. The most established is http://www.piezography.com. My experience with Piezography has been very very good. I've had fantastic prints made professionally on archival cotton paper using quad tones of matte black ink in an Epson printer. They rival any wet process fibre prints I've ever seen in terms of tonality and resolution. And they are archival, as far as everyone says anyway.
One of the biggest gotchas with black and white is the reflective quality of dye based inks, which look very different depending on the temperature of the ambient light. What looks like a black & white in your kitchen might look sepia or even purple on the front porch. This is the biggest complaint I have with my HP. Pigment based inks such as those available from Piezography solve that issue.
Hope that helps! If you need any pointers drop me a line. I spent a lot of time last year scanning and printing black and white for a show.
July 30th, 2004 at 5:16 pm
Correction: I don't know that a dedicated b&w retrofit is actually available yet for the 2200.
July 31st, 2004 at 8:07 am
If you've got a Mac and are looking for better B&W digital prints on your Epson 2100/2200 (or other Epson printer) then check out Roy Harrington's QuadTone RIP (shareware, US$50):
http://harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html
It gives fantastic results for B&W digital printing. I think he's working on a version for Windows as well. I've used it for about two months and it's really made a difference in my prints.
August 2nd, 2004 at 3:03 pm
marie, i did actually discover QUAD2200 a few weeks ago and it made a huge difference in preventing metamerism and giving me a more neutral b&w. still, however, the detail, density, and tonality just isn't there for me.
i suspect that part of my problem is in the scanning of black and white negs. the color scans i get are much better with much less work, and the prints of digital black and whites from my d100 days are of course, much much smoother.
August 5th, 2004 at 4:59 pm
you might want to read this article: http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints4.html
also read this, regarding tone curves:
http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html
August 8th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
sorry if this was already mentioned
this is how I do it with digital (although I do prefer to scan my B&W negatives)
Image>mode>lab color
in your channels layer change to 'lightness"
then go to image>mode>greyscale
adjust brightness/contrast or levels to make the image as you want it.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:59 am
For those who have stumbled upon these ancient posts, there is a great free photoshop plug-in for B/W conversion.
Take a look at: http://www.photo-plugin.com
January 25th, 2008 at 11:04 am
If that link above doesn't work, try this one:
http://photo-plugins.com/Plugins/Plugins/B-W-Conversion-2.html