Converting color to Black and white

LV
Posted By
Laslo_Varadi
Jul 27, 2004
Views
342
Replies
10
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Closed
What is the best way to convert a color digital photo to black and white in Photoshop Elements? Please help.
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black black and white color conversion white

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R
RSD99
Jul 27, 2004
Adobe Studio has an article on this … works well for me. [Note: A painless one-time registration is required.]

http://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=1&id=519&x ml=phs8colorbw

The same tutorial for PhotoShop CS is at

http://www.adobe.com/tips/phs8colorbw/main.html

[Note: Apparently does *not* require "registration."]

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What is the best way to convert a color digital photo to black and white in Photoshop
Elements? Please help.
PA
Patti Anderson
Jul 27, 2004
The best way is to desaturate the image (as opposed to convertng to grayscale). Enhance menu>Adjust Color>Hue/Saturation. Move the Saturation slider all the way to the left (-100).

Shortcut for desaturating: CTRL+SHIFT+U (or the equivalent on a Mac).

You might want to play with Levels a bit after doing this to enhance the contrast.

Patti
SB
Stu_Bloom
Jul 27, 2004
There’s a free plugin that I find useful (PC only).

<http://www.chezdomie.com/filtres/filtres.htm#r>

and download "RGB 2 Gray"
LV
Laslo_Varadi
Jul 27, 2004
Thank you. That worked.

Laslo
GD
Grant_Dixon
Jul 27, 2004
Woops first note got away from me this is what I had intended to send

Hmm

Seems to me no body experiments with Elements;) The sad state of affairs is that there is no good/easy way to convert from colour to black and white in right out of the box version of Elements. Without Photoshop’s Channel Mixer there is just compromises or add-ons. There is a trick that you can use to almost get as much control as the Channel Mixer and I have provided a link to it with my demo for colour to B&W conversion.

http://www.cavesofice.org/~grant/Demo.html

Grant
GD
Grant_Dixon
Jul 27, 2004
I should have mentioned this as well. With the Trick instead of using Edit: Master use Edit and select the colours you want to adjust be it RGB or CMY.

Grant
PA
Patti Anderson
Jul 27, 2004
In my first reply to Laslo, I just gave the basic instruction to desaturate and use Levels. Sometimes it’s hard to judge just how much info someone is requesting. Let it never be said that this forum lacks in alternative methods — I think I learn something new here everyday!

This "trick" at <http://www.escrappers.com/gray.html> is identical to Russel Brown’s black & white technique at <http://www.russellbrown.com/tips/photoshop.html> (under Seeing Black & White). I’ve been using Brown’s method ever since I learned about here. What’s nice is that the escrapper’s version has Elements specific instructions.

Patti
NS
Nancy_S
Jul 27, 2004
You might want to check out the free downloads from Escrappers at

<http://www.escrappers.com/freefiles.html>
SB
Stu_Bloom
Jul 27, 2004
I work at a newspaper, and I get a LOT of incredibly crappy color images that need to be converted to B&W. The plugin I mentioned earlier is helpful for some. The H&S layer + levels method is helpful for some. And another technique, if you have Richard Lynch’s book and tools, is to do a RGBL separation and use the best layer – usually either the luminosity or green layer – as the B&W version.
TF
Terri_Foster
Jul 27, 2004
I personally like removing the color then going through levels. I like this because I can use the eye droppers to set my white and black points. I can also determine how light and dark these points are. To change what PSE considers black, click on the levels black eye dropper a couple of times and the color picker will appear. The same can be done with whites and midtones. You probably won’t need to change the midtones. Then just use the level’s sliders to adjust to taste.

Terri

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