B&W conversion for portraits

[paulq]

Hi there,

I am new to photography and mostly I have been practicing on cityscapes and landscpaes. But I want to try my luck with portraits, especially B&W. I just want to ask if anyone can suggest a good B&W conversion method for CS3 rather than just clicking grayscale mode. I know there are countless methods of converting images to B&W in CS3, but is there a way that is more preferable for portraits? Thank you so much!

[OsmosisStudios]

Dont use greyscale.

Instead, use desaturate (CTRL+SHIFT+U or CMD+SHIFT+U) and adjust using levels (CTRL+L or CMD+L), curves (CTRL+M or CMD+M). That should get you where you need to.

For fun, though, try using channels. In your layer window, there's a tab called CHANNELS. Try removing two of the colour channels (RED, GREEN, or BLUE) and seeing how that affects things. You should be able to toggle a preview by using CTRL+3, 4, or 5 or CMD+3, 4, 5, depending on your OS.

[paulq]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Dont use greyscale.

Instead, use desaturate (CTRL+SHIFT+U or CMD+SHIFT+U) and adjust using levels (CTRL+L or CMD+L), curves (CTRL+M or CMD+M). That should get you where you need to.

For fun, though, try using channels. In your layer window, there's a tab called CHANNELS. Try removing two of the colour channels (RED, GREEN, or BLUE) and seeing how that affects things. You should be able to toggle a preview by using CTRL+3, 4, or 5 or CMD+3, 4, 5, depending on your OS.

Hey, thank you for suggesting alternatives on how to convert to B&W. I will try that when I get the opportunity.. Thanks a lot! Your comment is well appreciated!

[OsmosisStudios]

The channels really only work when converting colour images to black and white: i tried it with a B/W negative scanned image and, though there are variations, its not nearly enough and usually worsens. From colour, though, you can get some VERY wild stuff.

Heres an example:

Original colour image (RAW process, some slight editing/retouching.
Nikon D80
Nikon 18-70 f/3.5-4.5 IF-ED
70mm
1/80s
f/4.5

Using the channels system, I was able to get the following 3 options. In order, they are RED channel, GREEN channel and BLUE channel.

To get these, do as I noted above, removing the 2 channels you dont want, then convert to greyscale AFTER (otherwise the image is a multichannel and must be a .psd). Then save as jpg.

The examples I've shown are the not touched up in any way after the channel manipulation.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

The channels really only work when converting colour images to black and white: i tried it with a B/W negative scanned image and, though there are variations, its not nearly enough and usually worsens. From colour, though, you can get some VERY wild stuff.

Heres an example:

Original colour image (RAW process, some slight editing/retouching.
Nikon D80
Nikon 18-70 f/3.5-4.5 IF-ED
70mm
1/80s
f/4.5

Using the channels system, I was able to get the following 3 options. In order, they are RED channel, GREEN channel and BLUE channel.

To get these, do as I noted above, removing the 2 channels you dont want, then convert to greyscale AFTER (otherwise the image is a multichannel and must be a .psd). Then save as jpg.

The examples I've shown are the not touched up in any way after the channel manipulation.

What about a mixture of channels??? The facial skin tones look better in #1 and the dress and glasses look better with #3

[OsmosisStudios]

You could always do 2 channels (say take #1 and #3 from here), place them one over the other in a new document as separate layers and simply remove the bits of the top one to reveal the bottom one.

For instance let's say you prefer the skin in #1 and the details of #3. So, open Photoshop, open #1, Paste in #3 as a separate layer, remove the skin areas from #3 (using whatever tool you prefer) and you'll end up with the skin of #1 with the details of #3

(for the record, the reason the dress is almost black in the Red channel and perfect in the Blue is that the dress is, actually a very nice blue colour )

[paulq]

Thank you for the example Osmosis. I too agree that I like the face in #1 and the dress in #3. That is a good idea to open 2 separate images and take what you like from each! Great! Thanks again!