Mix to Mono

[wulf]

Take a look at these two versions of a recent photograph of mine:



How did I get from colour to black and white? The answer is via the route below:



Rather than desaturating or using the channel mixer, I prefer to decompose the image into red, green and blue channels. I can then assess the information in each one and recombine those layers. They can be stacked whatever order I choose because I am not going to recompose to a colour image but flatten and save as my custom black and white result.

From the screenshot of The Gimp window, you can see that I have made use of different layer modes, translucencies and even a layer mask on the red channel information, which lightens the top of the image but avoids blowing out the bottom part.

This method gives more options than the popular channel mixer approach but I don't think it takes any longer to get a result I am happy with. It will work with any editing package that allows you to decompose an image to information from the RGB channels and work with them as separate layer.

If you try it, show us something you've remixed (questions are also welcome).

Wulf

[wulf]

For reference, here are the other black and white images I have created this week, all using the above technique:



Wulf

[bonaina]

Funny, I was just looking for this kind of information

Thanks!

[jgomez65]

Originally Posted by wulf

For reference, here are the other black and white images I have created this week, all using the above technique:



Wulf

Can you post the same pictures in BW using Desaturation instead of separating it by colors? I am curious to see if there is a big difference.

[wulf]

I think there is a fairly obvious difference. Below I have compared the four shots above with each of the methods available via The Gimp's desaturation tool:



Wulf

[windrider86]

I would say a huge difference. I've been using channels to convert so will now have to give this technique a go. Thanks Wulf for the tut!!

[mcasanova]

Excellent post. I'll give it a try this weekend

[wulf]

I'm looking forward to seeing some other people's results.

Wulf

[MissCupcake]

What a difference!

[dkruser]

Wow. This looks great.... and not too difficult. I can't wait to give it a try. Very helpful! Thank you.