Dreamstime

Black and white - converting and editing

posted on 7th of january, 2011

As we know there are a lot of different ways how to turn your colorful pictures into black and white. We also know there are several ways to edit gray tones in black and white. One way I sometimes use (in photoshop) is the following:

1. Open a color picture in PS.

2. Create Vibrance layer on top of the picture (background) layer

3. Create Hue/Saturation layer on top of Vibrance layer

4. Select (if not selected) the Hue/Saturation layer and slide the saturation slider to the left side to lose colors

5. Select Vibrance layer and start playing around with Vibrance and Saturation sliders to change brighter or darker gray tones even more darker or brighter (or change contrast in other words)

6. Once you found suitable tones, select all layers, Ctrl+...

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Tags: black convert gray tones white

Comments (11)

	Posted by Risto40 on January 13, 2011 Thanks! Fortunately i have only few b&w pictures in my portfolio. I'll keep that in mind and try always to upload colorful images. Those 2 images currently used in this blog were colorless anyway - camera was black and silver and smoke was created in PS. (Wise) criticism is always welcome as criticism usually stays in our head and comes in mind when when you're doing things related to this. Good for further learning ;)
	Posted by Digitalexpressionimages on January 12, 2011 Don't tale this as a criticism it's simply a comment on black and white. As a graphic designer and a buyer of stock images as well as a contributor I don't like buying black and white images. Most designers are capable of converting to black and white themselves and I for one prefer that the photographer not make color decisions for me. If I buy a black and white image all I can do with it is use it black and white or hand tint it but with a color image I can convert to black and white, or keep certain elements in color and convert the background to black and white, create a hand tinted look, desaturate the color for a specific feel.... etc. etc. Keep that in mind when you consider making your pics black and white only.
	Posted by Sobek85 on January 10, 2011 Nice article