Photoshop Tip: B&W Conversion Technique #1

Christian Lincoln, Writer

 

I’ve received several emails commenting on the B&W portraits on my headshot website – City Of Angels Headshots – and asking if I would share my approach to B&W conversion.  I have several techniques I use that range in complexity.  Generally, the more complex methods give the greatest flexibility, but can be overkill in many circumstances as well as impractical for a workflow that requires converting many images on a tight deadline.

In the coming weeks I will share other approaches, but I would like to kick things off with one of my favorite techniques that allows for a tremendous amount of experimentation and gives many “happy accidents”. I’m going to assume a fundamental knowledge of Photoshop.  I hope you find it of value and fun!

Steps:

Layer 1 – The bottom layer in Photoshop is your color image.

Layer 2 – Add a Hue / Saturation adjustment layer.  Leave the settings at their defaults.  Set the blend mode to “color”.  Rename the layer to “Filter” for clarity. You won’t see any changes in the image.

Layer 3 – Add another Hue / Saturation adjustment layer.  Set the saturation value to -100.  Rename the layer as “Film”.  Blending mode is set to “normal”.

Now return to the Filter layer by selecting it and adjust the Hue value for different interpretations.  Optionally, you can adjust saturation as well. Another option is select individual color channels, then adjust the values.

I think it’s important to note that this approach maintains the integrity of your highlights.

If you would like to “go deep” into B&W conversion, I highly recommend Katrin Eismann’s classes at Kelby training.

More soon….

~James

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