Many Ways To Convert Color To Black & White

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 There are at many ways to convert an image from color to black and white. Here's a roundup and evaluation of the top seven plus a set of considerations to help you choose the best one for your needs.
1          Desaturate
Desaturate or use the Saturation slider to make all the channels the same without control over the mix. Desaturaton is useful for near neutral images, otherwise it produces compressed tonal structure.
2          Convert Mode To Grayscale
Grayscale conversions eliminate all channels but one. The default mix is 59% Green, 29% Red, 11% Blue. This can be customized by targeting a single channel before conversion, to get 100% of any channel in any color space, including Lab. Quick and direct, this method eliminates future flexibility; its limited use is to create Grayscale images for reproduction but it's not the best way to make a conversion from color to black and white.
3          Channel Mixer
The Channel Mixer set to Monochrome allows you to customize the mix of channels and can be used as an adjustment layer, which allows you to change the mix at any time in the future.


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7 Quotes By Photographer Harold Edgerton

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Enjoy this collection of quotes by photographer Harold Edgerton.
“If you don’t wake up at three in the morning and want to do something, you’re wasting your time. ” – Harold Egerton
“When I was a boy, I read with great interest but skepticism about as magic lamp which was used with success by a certain Aladdin. Today I have no skepticism whatsoever about the magic of the xenon flash lamp which we use so effectively for many purposes.” – Harold Egerton
“The trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they don’t realize they’re learning until it’s too late.” – Harold Eugene Edgerton
“We worked and worked, didn’t get anywhere. That’s how you know you’re doing research.” – Harold Egerton
“In many ways, unexpected results are what have most inspired my photography.” – Harold Egerton
“Don’t make me out to be an artist. I am an engineer. I am after the facts, only the facts.” – Harold Egerton
“Work like hell, tell everyone everything you know, close a deal with a handshake, and have fun.” – Harold Egerton
Read more in The Essential Collection Of Quotes By Photographers.
View more in 12 Great Photographs By Great Photographers.
View more in The Essential Collection Of Documentaries On Photographers.

Black & White Photography Styles

Technique - B&W  Comment
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high key

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mid key full scale

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mid key high contrast

3_bwpalettes_highcontrast

high contrast

4_bwpalettes_dark

low key

Most successful artists define a consistent palette for their life’s work, for periods during their careers, or for individual bodies of work. It’s one of the primary things that creates an easily recognizable signature style. This is as true for black and white photographers as it is color photographers.

You can precisely describe black and white palettes by identifying the overall lightness or key (high – light, medium, low – dark) and the amount of contrast (high, medium, low, none) held in three ranges of tones – shadows (zones 0-3), midtones (zones 4-7), and highlights (zones 8-10). Put more broadly, the dominant range of tone is identified first and then each range of tone can be described as expanded or compressed; a range of tone that does not exist in an image could be described as fully compressed.


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Expanding the Definition of Black & White Photography

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Suffusion XX

neutral image

The division between color and black and white in photography has been overemphasized based on the limitations of 20th century processes. 21st century processes are significantly different and beg a reconsideration of this division. Today, when we make black and white images we typically capture, process, and print with color.

When people use the term black and white they generally mean neutral (without saturation or bias towards one or more hues). Typically the use of the phrase “black and white” also encompasses warm and cold toned monochromatic images, cross-toned duochromatic images, and in some cases subtly tinted polychromatic images. The guiding principle behind these related but varied palettes is an emphasis on luminosity values, along with a restrained use of hue and very low levels of saturation.


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Enhancing Local Contrast In Black & White Images

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After

AntarcticaLIV_before_425

Before

Color to black and white conversions are radical transformations of an image. They establish the tonal foundations of a neutral image, creating tonal relationships by determining which areas of an image become light and which are dark. While this process can generate some localized effects (all blues become darker or lighter), this is quite different than selectively lightening and darkening an image to accentuate existing tonal relationships (only select blue areas become darker or lighter). Selectively enhance a tonal structure after conversion, rather than before. Selective enhancement may yield dramatic results.
Here are two ways.


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Color To Black & White Conversions – A Strategic Overview

Technique - B&W  Comment
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Alignment XXIII

 

There are many ways to convert color images to black and white.
Here’s my preferred method.

1       Optimize Color

Start with an optimized color original; set black point, white point, and lightness; clear color casts; boost saturation to reasonably high levels; avoid clipping. Use Lightroom or Camera Raw.

2       Establish a Tonal Structure
Establish a tonal structure - the relative lightness and darkness of diverse image areas. For basic global conversions use Lightroom or Camera Raw. For advanced local conversions use dual adjustment layers – Hue/Saturation below Black & White.

(The primary goal of a black and white conversion is to set the overall structure of the tonal relationship in an image. During color to black and white conversions, you'll be tempted to perfect the lightness and contrast of an image. Resist this temptation, if it leads you to creating too much contrast, loss of shadow and highlight detail.)

3       Enhance Global Lightness and Contrast
Enhance global lightness and contrast, the relative relationships of tone, after you establish the tonal structure, the fundamental tonal relationships. Use Curves.


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Chris Orwig – Finding The Magnificent In The Mundane – TEDx

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“Chris Orwig brings unique perspective, creativity and passion to all that he does. As a photographer, he subscribes to Marc Riboud’s observation that “Photography is about savoring life at 1/100th of a second.” For Chris the adventure is now, and the journey has already begun – discover, look, listen, learn and live.”
Chris shares that what’s imperfect or broken can be a source of depth, strength, and inspiration.
Find out more about Chris Orwig here.
Find Chris’s new book The Creative Fight here.

Q&A With Photographer Chris Orwig

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Chris Orwig provides quick candid answers to 20 questions.
What’s the best thing about photography?
Life is short and time moves too fast. Yet, photography has provided me with the way to try to stop, slow and savor moments that otherwise would have been lost. Even more, good photographs seem to be a concentration of life, a distillation like evaporated sea water where only the salt remains. And photography has become a means and a passport to get out into the world and to live life with more focus, intensity and passion. In a sense, what’s best about photography is that it has saved me. It’s saved me from myself and helped me to focus on others and on the grand mystery of life. And in doing so, photography has given me a new way to see and live.
What’s the thing that interests you most about photography?
The idea that the camera can help you dig more deeply, see more clearly and live life more fully.
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs?
In my own photographs I am always struck by the autobiographical nature of them. In a sense, I can look at a photograph and remember who I was when I took it and how I changed because of it. And collectively, these photographs help me appreciate, remember and make sense of my own life story.
Read more of this Q&A with Chris here.
Find out more about Chris Orwig here.
Find Chris’ new book The Creative Fight here.
Read more Q&A’s with photographers here.