Real B&W Look??

JC
Posted By
Jon_Consiglio
Sep 5, 2006
Views
817
Replies
19
Status
Closed
Hey everyone,

I’ve had a heck of a time getting a true B&W look to my photos. I’ve tried every way of converting that I’ve been able to find. I shoot with a EOS 20D and I use Photoshop CS2. The best results have come from Gorman B&W Action, Alien Skin Exposure and Desaturate and Levels adjustments with a slight warming filter.. The problem is that they aren’t really black and white. The seem to have a strong tint that I can’t get rid of. No matter what I do, there’s always some sort of color. I was looking at some prints from 35mm B&W film that I have, and there’s nothing but black and white?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying to get this for months now and it’s really starting to drive me nuts!
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Danny Raphael
Sep 5, 2006
Not to worry… It’s probably not you.

Assuming the "tint" you’re seeing is on prints generated on an inkjet printer, this phenomenon is a function of the printer, not the various software conversion methods you are using.

Many inkjet printers exhibit this tinting effect when one tries to use them to print BW.

google: inkjet print "black and white"

for additional information and suggested solutions/workarounds.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Sep 5, 2006
Well, I’m confused. The prints from b&w 35mm, are they analog prints or scans from the negs? And, is the tint in the screen, the print or both, (from your digital files)?
C
chrisjbirchall
Sep 5, 2006
First of all there are two things going on here, production of the file and making a print without any hint of colour.

Getting a true black and white image from an inkjet printer is notoriously difficult – especially when you consider how the "colour" of an inkjet print changes (a) over time and (b) when you view in under different lighting conditions.

Say you have a print which looks perfectly neutral in room lighting; take it outdoors and you’ll likely observe a distinct green cast.

Two workarounds: (1) get a set of black and grey inks especially formulated for monochrome printing. (2) Send your files to a lad for printing. The good labs will return a perfectly neutral print even though it is produced on colour paper.

Now as for converting your colour images into black and white, I’ll come back after I’ve eaten my dinner with MY favourite method of conversion. In the meantime, consider the image below, which illustrates what happens to your colours when desaturate as opposed to conversion to Greyscale.

..
CN
Cybernetic Nomad
Sep 5, 2006
(2) Send your files to a lad for printing.

Better yet, send them to a lab for printing <g>
C
chrisjbirchall
Sep 5, 2006
No Cyb, I send mine to the lad at my lab. He’s good. <g>
AC
Art Campbell
Sep 5, 2006
Fred Miranda makes a good B&W plug in, as does PixelMagic. Also, Trevor Morris has a package of script that genertae some 20 or so B&W variations, for free from <http://user.fundy.net/morris/photoshop28.shtml>

Art
A
AAvK
Sep 5, 2006
Hey everyone,

I’ve had a heck of a time getting a true B&W look to my photos. I’ve tried every way of converting that I’ve been able to find. I shoot with a EOS 20D and I use Photoshop CS2. The best results have come from Gorman B&W Action, Alien Skin Exposure and Desaturate and Levels adjustments with a slight warming filter.. The problem is that they aren’t really black and white. The seem to have a strong tint that I can’t get rid of. No matter what I do, there’s always some sort of color. I was looking at some prints from 35mm B&W film that I have, and there’s nothing but black and white?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying to get this for months now and it’s really starting to drive me nuts!

That’s exactly what I want to do, did a search and found this tut: http://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=2&xml=phscs2mr blkwht&id=101668 I think it worked really great.

As far as unwanted color casts, sometimes a bad development occurs with film or as a result of some screw-up in the camera. And as in removing such color casts digitally, you might find the answers along the lines of tutorials that are related to digital photo resoration. I suggest go through the site of the following link:

http://www.digitalretouch.org/

—
}<)))*> Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/
A
a
Sep 5, 2006
I don’t understand. Doesn’t cranking Saturation clear to the left in Hue/Saturation eliminate all color or chnaginf the Mode to greyscale? What is your View>Proof Setup set to simulate?

Here’s a fun way to adjust tones for various colors to improve the conversion of color to B&W. I believe Russell Brown came up with this one:

1/ Make a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer; name it "filter" and set the mode to Colour.

2/ Make another Hue/Sat adjustment layer; name it "film" and adjust the Saturation slider to the extreme left.

3/ To use: Double click the middle "filter" layer and use the Hue slider to adjust the monochrome tonality.

If you make an action up to do this, you’ll have an instant conversion tool offering an infinite number of tonal variations. The principal is the same as putting coloured filters on the camera when shooting B&W film – only better!

With this tool you can select individual colours from the drop down box and tweek the tones of (say) just the blues, or reds, etc.

wrote in message
Hey everyone,

I’ve had a heck of a time getting a true B&W look to my photos. I’ve tried
every way of converting that I’ve been able to find. I shoot with a EOS 20D and I use Photoshop CS2. The best results have come from Gorman B&W Action, Alien Skin Exposure and Desaturate and Levels adjustments with a slight warming filter.. The problem is that they aren’t really black and white. The seem to have a strong tint that I can’t get rid of. No matter what I do, there’s always some sort of color. I was looking at some prints from 35mm B&W film that I have, and there’s nothing but black and white?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying to get this for months now and it’s really starting to drive me nuts!
C
chrisjbirchall
Sep 5, 2006
Okay. The smoked tofu with pasta in a rocket pesto sauce has been washed down with a nice Shiraz (for the good of my heart, I might add)

So what about this B&W conversion thing? You’re right in stating there are many many different methods, and each user will have his or her favourite. I’ll explain mine in a moment.

First consider the image in my previous post. You can see from this that simply "desaturating" is possibly the worst method, compared, for instance, with converting to Greyscale mode which does maintain logical greyscale "steps" between each of the colours.

The downside of the Greyscale mode, however, is the fact you are effectively reducing a 24 bit image (eight per channel) down to 8 bits.

My favourite method is the Hue/Sat method. This is how it is done:

(you can record these steps in an Action)

* Make a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and name it "filter"

* Make another Hue/Sat layer and call it "film".

* Take the Saturation slider in the "film" layer down to zero, effectively desaturating the image.

(stop recording the action)

Running this action will simply desaturate the image. Now the fun starts!

Double click the "filter" layer and experiment with the "Hue" slider. this will have the same effect as placing an infinitely variable colour filter in front of the lens of a camera loaded with B&W film. You have a blue sky? Slide the Hue control to what would become a yellow hue and you will darken the sky. Take it over to Red and the blue sky will go black.

Pretty cool eh! This gives you full control over the overall tonality of your monochrome image,

But there’s more!

Say you have a person wearing a red sweater in a picture with a blue sky. Darkening the sky will also lighten the red sweater. Here is where the real magic of this method shows its worth.

Because the Hue/Sat dialogue allows you to control the red channel. green channel and blue channel independently, you can adjust the tone of the sky and the red sweater independently!.

but there’s even more!

Say you want the red filter to alter the monochrome tones of the redsweater without affecting the red car – simly paint on the adjustment layer’s layer mask to locally control the effect.

Such control was never available during the days of black and white film and the wet darkroom.

Hope this has been of some interest.

Chris.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Sep 5, 2006
Chris, you’ve been viewing too many Russell Brown videos!
C
chrisjbirchall
Sep 5, 2006
Cool Michael – that’s truely amazing! 😉
G
granny
Sep 6, 2006
Old N Slow:
Granny typed:
[snip]

No matter what I do, there’s always some sort of
color. I was looking at some prints from 35mm B&W film that I have, and there’s nothing but black and white??

I don’t have an answer.. I was just reminiscing about the good Ol days of silver and graded contrast papers that your pictures were probably printed on, before all that new color stuff that was to complicated for the average photographer that started out with a home darkroom in the bathroom… Dang, I sure miss those good old days long past when almost everything was in "Black & White" and you dodged with a piece of cardboard taped to the end of a bit of clothes hanger then you burned with a piece of cardboard with a hole cut in it and you softened a portrait with a circle cut out of ladies hose.. you reminded me of my long lost youth looking at pictures from Strand, Weston, and Adams and studying photos from "Group F64" and wondering how did they get all that detail in the shadows and highlights in those "Black and White" photos Sorry for taking up so much of your time but Thanks for making me remember "The Good Old Days"
—
"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy
NA
Nate Apkon
Sep 6, 2006
Check out Fred Miranda’s web site and his B&W Work Flow plug-in.

Nateda
wrote in message
Hey everyone,

I’ve had a heck of a time getting a true B&W look to my photos. I’ve tried every way of converting that I’ve been able to find. I shoot with a EOS 20D and I use Photoshop CS2. The best results have come from Gorman B&W Action, Alien Skin Exposure and Desaturate and Levels adjustments with a slight warming filter.. The problem is that they aren’t really black and white. The seem to have a strong tint that I can’t get rid of. No matter what I do, there’s always some sort of color. I was looking at some prints from 35mm B&W film that I have, and there’s nothing but black and white?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying to get this for months now and it’s really starting to drive me nuts!
AC
Art Campbell
Sep 6, 2006
Chris,

I followed your directions, but I can’t get this to work.

One question. When you’re saying "Saturation slider in the "film" layer down to zero" are you meaning 0 (the starting point) or -100? I guessed -100, but…

Are there any other important details? Order of layers (although I tried swapping Film and Filter), mask/no mask, blending mode????

Thanks,
Art
TM
Trevor_Morris
Sep 6, 2006
Check out this movie:
<http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/ColortoBW.mov>
AC
Art Campbell
Sep 6, 2006
Thanks Trevor!
That answered the questions.
I just wish Russell’s movies didn’t make my teeth hurt…. ;- )

Art
TM
Trevor_Morris
Sep 6, 2006
If you play them with the fastforward button down, they’re more tolerable (and take less time to watch) 🙂 [Seriously]
JW
John_Waller
Sep 6, 2006
If you play them with the fastforward button down, they’re more tolerable (and take less time to watch) 🙂 [Seriously]

That’s exactly what I do 🙂

—
Regards

John Waller
JC
Jon_Consiglio
Sep 11, 2006
Thanks everyone for your help. I’ve been taking most of my pictures, which are of mostly family, and having them printed at CVS. I thought that may have something to do with it. As for plug-ins,

I”ve since purchased the Imaging Factory’s Convert To B&W Pro 3.0 and this seems to have some of the best results on my monitor. I’ve been using the 30 day demo of Alien Skin’s Exposure filer that’s supposed to simulate particular color and B&W films, which seems to do a good job. I will check out that video, and the other plug-ins.

As for the 35mm B&W prints I was referring to…they were shot on an older EOS 620 and the film was sent off to Fuji or Kodak. I don’t know what film was used seeing it was my Dad’s camera about 16 years ago when I was about 10! Now and then he’ll send me some B&W’s of my family in California (I’m in Corpus Christi, Tx), so I have no clue where the film was sent to be developed.

Chris, I will try your suggestion which makes sense. when I use the Convert To B&W Pro filter, it has the hue/saturation slider that makes all the difference in the world. I would like to have my own way though. As dumb as this may sound, I never thought that it could be something with the printing!?

You’ve all been a great help, thank you.

Jonathan Consiglio

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