I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to improve my black and white images...
They seem a little flat to me. In ps i typically change a color file to a b&w and then increase brightness slightly and then increase contrast slightly until it looks ok to my eye...
I'm not too keen on after effects and buying extras.
Is there anyone who has a simple workflow that could help me?
I have included a sample.
Thanks
-mike
There are many ways to change a file to b&w and the one you're using is about the worst. Leave the file in RBG and use the Channel Mixer. If you google black and white conversion you'll be inundated with options.
Definitely don't just "desaturate." Here's a simple procedure that I often use.
First, start by looking at the individual r, g and b channels (in Photoshop's channels view). Each channel will show you, in black and white, what information you have in the given color. The green channel is often the cleanest. Skin is often very bright in the red channel (all that blood lurking just under the surface). The blue channel is usually the noisiest.
Next add two Channel Mixer layers. Open the top one and click the desaturate box. You'll see your image go black and white.
Then open the Channel Mixer layer below it and use the sliders to adjust the proportional contribution of each color to the final mix.
This technique gives you a lot of control, basically allowing you to simulate any color of filter in front of a black and white film.
An alternative: instead of the bottom Channel Mixer, use a Hue Sat layer. Be careful you don't push the hue and sat controls too far or you'll end up with lost information / noise. With Hue/Sat you can modify targeted colors in very precise ways. Doing this followed by channel mixer followed by desaturate gives you a ton of control over the mapping of specific colors in your original image to luminosities in your B/W result.
If you have PSCS3 and are shooting in RAW--go into the HSL panel/tab and set the saturation sliders all to 0 (this is not the same as desaturating BTW), then adjust the luminosity sliders until you get something that pleases you. Go back to the basic tab and adjust contrast, clarity--even temp/tone and into the camera calibration and adjust sliders--as well as the curve tab This is Martin Evening's technique and you can get much less noise in skies and shadow areas when adjusting. Open in PS--and do some burning and dodging but using an adjustment layer of grey and white and black brushes. Beyond that you can get even more precise and use layers and masks and just adjust tonality in small areas.
One more way (beyond the usual old channel mixer method)--if you have PSCS3 (you did not say--just PS), then you have an adjustment layer possibility of black/white where you can do a great deal--and there are 'built in' filters--red, blue, etc.
Lots of ways to get striking monos--and I've used them all. Now I'm using Martin Evening's technique in LR or ACR (in LR I made the saturation sliders to 0 as a preset) and processing a bit more in PSCS3.
If you have the hard copy of PS3, a tutorial disk came with it. On that disk Russell Brown has an excellent lesson on how to convert to B&W without loosing the original colors.
There are many ways and the best way is what gets you the results you want. Channel is one of the best ways. There is a video on thelittlephotoshop.co.uk that I found on a podcast that I thought was a great to convert to black and white and allows you to really fine tune the image. It works by adjusting each of the colors to the tone you desire. Instead of me explaining and making it sound confusing just go here Black and white technique and you will understand. It really is a nice way to convert and it helps you to understand what is actually happening when you convert from color to black and white. I hope this helps some but like others have said there are many ways to do it. Give this a try, you may like it and it is really easy.
Art B
I have to assume you don't have CS3. In that version Russell Brown does the same thing with one adjustment layer and much, much easier. I must admit CS3 has really improved this technique with this latest version. For those who bought the hard copy of PS3, the included tutorial disk includes this technique.
It's funny, but I've never been one to crave black & white photos but one technique I like about it is the ease with which you can, if you want, bring back individual colors with the brush tool and adjust the colors with a scrubber directly on the photo while never loosing the original color photo.
You can do this with the sliders in lightroom as well. I use lightroom now for the basic adjustments and then go over to photoshop to adjust contrast, dodge, burn and tweak it some and also to sharpen.
In case anyone is interested, here is a video from the same link I posted above on how to do it in CS3. black in white in cs3
