Here's a pretty extensive rundown of my workflow:

1. Import in to Lightroom
2. Switch to "greyscale" treatment
3. Adjust the exposure slider until the histogram is as far right as it will go without clipping
4. Adjust the blacks slider to pick a good black point for the image
5. Use the brightness slider to adjust the actual brightness of the image since step 2 can often leave it too bright.
6. Adjust the contrast slider until there is a good separation between the light and dark tones
7. Adjust the clarity slider until the image has the right amount of "pop" without any weird artifacts in high contrast areas. This is very subject dependent as some subjects look better with lower clarity.
8. Next I move on to the tone curve and basically add and move around points until the various areas of the image are showing the detail I want. This is what I use to bring out more detail in the dark tones or bring down some highlights. In other images, I bring down shadows and bring up highlights to get an S shaped curve that gives a high contrast kind of look.
9. This part is really the essence of the black and white conversion process for me. The previous steps can be applied equally well to color images. I spend a lot of time playing with the different "grayscale mix" sliders. Each one controls the contribution of every color to the grayscale output. You can really fine tune how the colors appear in your image. For example I can turn down the green slider if I want to make grass look dark and not glow much, or I can crank up the same slider if I want grass that looks almost white.
10. I occasionally go for split toning, but it depends on the look of the image I'm going for.
11. I usually add at least a bit of vignette to almost every image. I know some photographers make a big deal about having no vignetting etc, but I find that I like the look especially if it is subtle. In some cases I make it not so subtle. Again, depends on the image.
12. Finally I tweak the preliminary sharpening settings. This is only the basic "in-camera" type sharpening and the final sharpening will be applied in the output stage during the export dialog. I use this mainly to make sure detailed parts of the image are looking reasonably crisp. It's important not to overdo it here otherwise after the second stage sharpening your image will look quite bad.
13. I double check the histogram to make sure there's no significant amount of undesired clipping.
14. Leave the image in my Lightroom catalog for a day or two.
15. Come back to look at it again, go through all the steps to tweak anything I don't like any more.
16. Leave it for a couple more hours, come back to it once more.
17. If I'm satisfied, export for web, post to my gallery.

Usually before print I'll go through the recheck process again, since I usually find things I'd like to tweak here and there. For print I also usually export to TIFF and make some minor edits in photoshop, although with Lightroom 2.0 this is hardly necessary due to the addition of the spot healing and brush tools.

Kamil Kisiel wrote:
Here's a pretty extensive rundown of my workflow:

1. Import in to Lightroom
2. Switch to "greyscale" treatment
3. Adjust the exposure slider until the histogram is as far right as it will go without clipping
4. Adjust the blacks slider to pick a good black point for the image
5. Use the brightness slider to adjust the actual brightness of the image since step 2 can often leave it too bright.
6. Adjust the contrast slider until there is a good separation between the light and dark tones
7. Adjust the clarity slider until the image has the right amount of "pop" without any weird artifacts in high contrast areas. This is very subject dependent as some subjects look better with lower clarity.
8. Next I move on to the tone curve and basically add and move around points until the various areas of the image are showing the detail I want. This is what I use to bring out more detail in the dark tones or bring down some highlights. In other images, I bring down shadows and bring up highlights to get an S shaped curve that gives a high contrast kind of look.
9. This part is really the essence of the black and white conversion process for me. The previous steps can be applied equally well to color images. I spend a lot of time playing with the different "grayscale mix" sliders. Each one controls the contribution of every color to the grayscale output. You can really fine tune how the colors appear in your image. For example I can turn down the green slider if I want to make grass look dark and not glow much, or I can crank up the same slider if I want grass that looks almost white.
10. I occasionally go for split toning, but it depends on the look of the image I'm going for.
11. I usually add at least a bit of vignette to almost every image. I know some photographers make a big deal about having no vignetting etc, but I find that I like the look especially if it is subtle. In some cases I make it not so subtle. Again, depends on the image.
12. Finally I tweak the preliminary sharpening settings. This is only the basic "in-camera" type sharpening and the final sharpening will be applied in the output stage during the export dialog. I use this mainly to make sure detailed parts of the image are looking reasonably crisp. It's important not to overdo it here otherwise after the second stage sharpening your image will look quite bad.
13. I double check the histogram to make sure there's no significant amount of undesired clipping.
14. Leave the image in my Lightroom catalog for a day or two.
15. Come back to look at it again, go through all the steps to tweak anything I don't like any more.
16. Leave it for a couple more hours, come back to it once more.
17. If I'm satisfied, export for web, post to my gallery.

Usually before print I'll go through the recheck process again, since I usually find things I'd like to tweak here and there. For print I also usually export to TIFF and make some minor edits in photoshop, although with Lightroom 2.0 this is hardly necessary due to the addition of the spot healing and brush tools.

Thank you for your addition Kamil. You sharing your workflow is helping all of us improve our conversion methods. See you around

eric

Also interesting Kamil how you let your images sit for a day or two and deem if its worthy you export it to the web...really fascinating

eric

Not so much to deem whether or not it is worthy, but just to re-evaluate the processing. I find I need to take some time away from a photograph to get good perspective on it. I usually don't download my photos right after a shoot but wait after that as well. I guess I'm a really slow photographer.

I actually picked up a lot of my ways of doing things by reading Freeman Patterson books. I highly recommend them if you're looking for inspiration.

Good suggestion Kamil. I step away from my images I'm working on as well. It's always good to come back another day to look at them. I've had days when I come back to view an image and think to myself, "what the heck was I thinking when I processed that". If I still love the image just the way it is after a few days, then I feel it's right.

Here is my basic workflow:
1. I Usually choose "Camera Standard" for the camera calibration.
2. Do all basic exposure, color and contrast edits in Lightroom, paying careful attention to the tone cure and black and highlight clipping. I try to get the color version looking as good as I can. If the image is a landscape or something other than a portrait I usually bump up the Clarity for added punch. I leave default sharpening for now.
3. I choose to Edit in PS4.
4. I run Levels and adjust the image so the levels are just off both black and white clipping. It depends on the image though. Sometimes I adjust the gamma slightly.
5. I run an action built from this method by Greg Gorman. This works especially well for People:
http://www.gormanphotography.com/bw_conversion.pdf
There is also a variant call the Rob Carr method that is also very good. I'm evaluation Silver EFex Pro as well.
6. I sometimes run another curves adjustment, but mostly not.
7. The Gorman method runs a high pass filter that adds some midtone contrast which adds sharpness to a lot of images.
8. I save the image back to Lightroom and apply 9a. Other times I apply 9b in CS4 then save to Lightroom.
9a. I add sharpening in lightroom. I don't use them but I generally follow the settings in the portrait and landscape presets for the appropriate images.
9b. For sharpening I also very often use actions based on the Bruce Fraser book Real World Sharpening for Photoshop CS2. This is a great book and everything still applies to CS4.
10. That is mostly it, but sometimes I come back to an image later and apply additional light tone adjustments in Lightroom.

Bump for new members who might be interested in this information.

Some great workflow ideas.
I mainly use Capture Nx and once in a while I use Lightroom.
Save my files in .nef and than the ones I use for the web I save it as .jpg as well.

Kamil,
Interestingly, you've outlined my workflow as well. Although I suspect that each of us has our own way of adjusting the grayscale mix and working in curves.
Signed,
Another LR fan,
Scott

eric kim wrote:
5. Adjust tones of B/W by turning it to greyscale and adjusting specific color channel levels. (Adjust until it looks good to my eyes).
6. Open in CS3 and further add contrast, adjust shadows/highlights.


Got a question. How about adjusting it as a B+W in Raw (ACR...) and make it look as good as possible there using the color sliders, ect... but then bring it into PS as a COLOR image to then do Channel mixer, Calculations... in other words, why bring it into PS as a gray-scale? Seems, by leaving it in color it would allow more flexibility in PS.

mark70x70 wrote:
eric kim wrote:
5. Adjust tones of B/W by turning it to greyscale and adjusting specific color channel levels. (Adjust until it looks good to my eyes).
6. Open in CS3 and further add contrast, adjust shadows/highlights.


Got a question. How about adjusting it as a B+W in Raw (ACR...) and make it look as good as possible there using the color sliders, ect... but then bring it into PS as a COLOR image to then do Channel mixer, Calculations... in other words, why bring it into PS as a gray-scale? Seems, by leaving it in color it would allow more flexibility in PS.

Hey Mark. I have actually modified my b/w workflow since the last time I posted this. I have been just importing my photos to PS in color and doing my greyscale adjustments there.

eric

Bump for new members

Hello

A link to my latest flow Here

All the best Alan

I love this as an absolute amateur photog.

My work flow is really primitive by comparison:

1 Shoot RAW
2. Edit in PSE 6
3 Open and creat3 levels layer - click Ok
4 Create gradient map layer -click OK
5 open levels - adjust red (darken), green & blue (lighten)
6 Flatten image
7. Minor adjustments including dodging and burning as necessary
8 Convert mode to B&W

All the above per Scott Kelby "Photography Elements Book ...."

CS3 or 4 are frighteningly expensive in Rands and PSE cost me <$100 last year in the US and I doubt whether my hobyist status could ever justify it.

lazlo369 wrote:
Some great workflow ideas.
I mainly use Capture Nx and once in a while I use Lightroom.
Save my files in .nef and than the ones I use for the web I save it as .jpg as well.


Interesting - as an NX user also, do you use any 'sets' that are broadly applicable?

Which conversion workflow do you use? I'd like to pick your brain for everything NX - marvel at your work & site.

Thanks,

Bob

Bob Jarman wrote:
lazlo369 wrote:
Some great workflow ideas.
I mainly use Capture Nx and once in a while I use Lightroom.
Save my files in .nef and than the ones I use for the web I save it as .jpg as well.


Interesting - as an NX user also, do you use any 'sets' that are broadly applicable?

Which conversion workflow do you use? I'd like to pick your brain for everything NX - marvel at your work & site.

Thanks,

Bob

I agree totally with Bob's comments on your work, Lazlo - top notch

Tagged for future reference.
Thanks a lot guys.

YAY!
This is what I was looking for, black and white work flows.

Thanks for all the information *drools*

Bumping this in case this might be useful to some people.

eric kim wrote:
Bumping this in case this might be useful to some people.

This REALLY needs to be a sticky!

Eric,
I agree about this being a sticky.
Have you PM'd guardian, the FM moderator of this forum, to see if it is possible?

Great thread, with, I assume, more updates in our processes and more additions from other members as times goes on. Thanks for starting this and to everyone for sharing so generously.

Scott

Wow! Eric thanks for starting this and bumping ever so often. Wouldn't have known it was here without the recent bump. Currently my process is simple, which is odd since my roots are in B&W film:

* Shoot Raw
* Import into Aperture
* Do basic cropping, sharpening etc. in Aperture
* Call SilverEfex plug-in for basic B&W conversion
* Effects very but I'm quite fond of "high structure" and several of the older film grains.
* Output varies, most often to web but a fair amount of printing with a i9900.

Bumping for more input and ideas.

I have been trying SilverEfex and the "High Structure" filter in that software. It's a one click solution that gets you to where you want to be with minimal hassle.

I'll have to admit I'm loving the ease of use and time saving factor of that one click conversion.

Here some examples. **note** I'm a novice with SilverEfex at this point but I see it's promise.

Thanks for the bump! Just found this thread. +1 for sticky.

sbeme wrote:
Eric,
I agree about this being a sticky.
Have you PM'd guardian, the FM moderator of this forum, to see if it is possible?

Great thread, with, I assume, more updates in our processes and more additions from other members as times goes on. Thanks for starting this and to everyone for sharing so generously.

Scott

I pm'd him a while back, but he didn't respond. I guess I can pm him again.

Eric