Videografic Blog

As announced now some do’s and don’ts suggestions regarding the process of black & white conversion.

In the analogue black & white photography you only had the brightness information, however in the digital photography you can also make use of the color information in the process of black & white conversion. This is a major advantage you should always keep in mind if you seriously plan to create outstanding black & white photographs.
So I advise to never shoot in monochrom mode. Always use the color mode in your camera settings, preferable chose RAW files and the adobe rgb color space. If you like you can set the preview image mode on your camera display to monochrome (only to get a first impression on how the photograph might be look like in monochrome mode).
Because photography in black & white focuses much more on clear lines and strong shapes than their color counterparts to underline the essential meaning of a photograph  you will get a good first visual feedback how the photograph will work by viewing it in monochrome mode after taking the shot.
But this is only a very first impression: the digital post production is the place there all the „magic“ becomes obvious.

At first it is highly recommended to process all the basic steps - no difference to any other (color) photography retouching. You should pass through the usual developments steps in PS/LR with a special focus on advisable color corrections (hue, saturation, luminance). Yes, color corrections are essential because convincing black & white photographs highly depend on the adjustment of the colors which are still present in an rgb black & white photograph. You should make extensive use of the color information during the conversion process.

I will skip the initial basic steps - the preliminary work of the retouching process - and start at the point reaching the step to convert into black & white.

At first I will start with potentially options you should NOT take into account in your workflow to achieve a convincing black & white photography.
These conversions only may be a given choice at first glance, but - especially because they will not offer any significant options to manually adjust the final result - they will not lead to a photograph that really stands out of the crowd.

I personally use adobe cc applications, so subsequent I usually refer to Photoshop and Lightroom (PS/LR)

You should not:

• simply switch to greyscale mode or only apply dynamic adjustment level: based on the bayer pattern of individual red, green and blue filters for each pixel a constant luminance value is assigned to each color (60% green channel, 30 % red  channel, 10% blue channel)
• use the desaturate functionality or only reduce the saturation in the hue/saturation dialog: because all colors are desaturated with the same value all colors with the same brightness level receive the same luminance value)

I all of these cases you have no chance to further intervene in the process in a sufficient manner.

Might be an option:

• looking for the best suitable channel in rgb mode and after conversion of this active channel into greyscale mode applying further adjustments like gradation curves and so on.
• using the channel mixer
• working with the luminance channel only (separation of colour and brightness due to temporarily LAB conversion)

Most useful workflows

To further extend the possibilities and the quality of the conversion process it is highly advisable to make this kind of black & white conversion on basis of the RAW data with either working directly in the RAW converter before switching the file to PS or using the file as a smart object in PS to reedit the file in the RAW converter. In ACR (adobe camera raw) you will make the conversion in the hue/saturation/brightness section. Additionally in ACR you have full access to further adjustments as e.g white balance and camera profiles. Using LR you will get the same result by means of a comparable workflow - LR also uses the RAW data in this process.
As already mentioned in the introductory remarks it is quite useful to initially adjust the colors in the rgb file (e.g. using the color sliders to make the colors „function“ significantly better with regard to the upcoming black & white conversion. Sometimes even a color balance adjustment level after picking up a color range at first might be useful before applying the black & white conversion.

• apply the black & white adjustment level: you still have the possibility to adjust all colors (to influence the appearance of the black & white conversion) by means of slider controls or numeric input. Furthermore the hand tool is available to make precise adjustments. Where appropriate, additional adjustment levels can be applied.
• Based on the idea behind the channel mixer you may use different channels of the rgb file combining them by means of layer masks (playing with different blend modes could be helpful). Using the channel calculations functionality in PS will lead you to similar results although not as flexible as using before mentioned layer masks.
• Outstanding and vibrant results are also possible applying a gradient map (from black to white). You can further adjust the gradient for your liking - especially in case you are interested in additional toning.

As with so many things in life the combination of different workflows and techniques will often result in the „best“ black & white conversion.
Only a few examples:

• Conversion into black & white using gradient maps can easily be enhanced by combining several gradient maps: the first one as described before, the second one (on top in the layer stack) in blend mode color using e.g. a photographic toning gradient map.
• Quite impressive is the technique to use more than one black & white adjustment level. In case that a background layer exists you can stack black & white adjustment levels one above the other. In the layer styles of the upper one you have to set the gap to light or strong. Doing this you have the possibility to apply parts of both black & white adjustment levels to the background by means of editing the masks of the levels. So you can make different adjustments in both levels to be reflected in the final black & white conversion.
• Just one further technique combing different processes: Use a dynamic adjustment layer (blend mode color) and set the saturation to value zero. To influence the luminance of the underlying color put a hue/saturation adjustment layer among the dynamic adjustment layer (in blend mode luminance).

Generally - to further customize the final result you should use the selective editing features in PS/LR to make localized adjustment.
These could be the radial- and gradient filter or the replacement brush in LR. In PS you might make extensive use of masks and blend modes.

Last but not least you should keep in mind that dodge and burn techniques to emphasis special parts in the final photography as well as perhaps toning and color grading workflows might be a practical option.

If you consider to make use of third parties plugins: silver efex pro 2 from google (former nik software) can highly be recommended. It is the best one on the market (in particular because of the „u point“ technology which enables you to make very precise local adjustments)