I go through phases with my photos. For a long time I made almost all of my photos black and white. And then, as I learned to take better color photos I became a lover of all things color. And now, I find myself swinging a bit back the other way – enjoying the classic look of black and white photos. There is a timeless feel to them and with the right photo, they can made a good photo GREAT.
However, not all black and whites are created equal. In photo editing programs, there are a lot of different ways to create black and white images and many variations within those methods. You can go deep and dark or light and airy. There is also that ugly grey and muddled look that we all seem to loathe but don’t know how to escape from. Each method has its unique results.
There are also a lot of black and white actions available to download/purchase that make the transition instantly. However, the problem with actions is that no one action will work on every photo. Photos are made up of millions of pixels — light and dark and everything in between. An action may be perfect for one photo but a photo with different lighting or focus can make that same action look awful. You could also use Lightroom with some black and white presets. However, those have the same problem as actions with the added difficulty of working in a second program.
So why not make your own black and whites? Some of you may be saying, “Um, Janet, remember that grey muddled mess you were talking about?” Well, yes, yes I do. But, I have learned a very simple black and white conversion method that I love, is possible in Photoshop AND Photoshop Elements, and looks great because it is done individually to each photo. It may look hard, but with practice it can be done in a less than a minute (20 seconds to be exact; I timed myself).
Here is a picture of my sweet six year old, Alaina. This shot is SOOC (straight out of the camera). Just in case you are interested, here is the technical info: Canon 20D, manual mode, ISO 800, f2.8, 1/60
I was working on a scrapbook page and had a specific kit I wanted to use. Her dress (which was her Easter dress last year but she insisted on wearing it for her birthday) didn’t match the kit I wanted to use and I didn’t like the orange tile behind her head. I decided a black and white photo was in order. Now, I could have just done a remove color or remove saturation in PSE, but then it would have looked like this:
Not bad, but not great. But I am not a fan of grey and prefer my black and whites to be actually be black and white instead of shades of grey. So, I did an easy gradient map conversion (which is easier than it sounds).
In the layers palette, click on the adjustment layer* icon, the one that looks like a half white/half black circle. Choose levels from the drop down menu. When the levels box pops up, click ok. We will come back to this box later.
(*Simply put, an adjustment layer is a layer that affects the layers below it visibly, but does not actually change the pixels of the other layers. Think of an old overhead projector — if you have a picture of your uncle Albert on a transparent sheet and then draw a funny mustache on him with a permanent marker, you have forever changed the picture. However, if you put a transparent page over the photo and then draw your mustache, on the screen it looks like you drew a mustache on the photo but the photo is actually unharmed, and untouched.)
Next, click on the adjustment layer icon again and choose gradient map.
When the gradient editor pops up choose the black to white option (the default choice will be you current foreground color to background color)
Now your layers palette will look like this
Next, click on the levels adjustment layer. For this tutorial, we are not going to get into what exactly the levels dialogue is and what it means. That is for another day. As you can see, when the levels dialogue opens, you can see a “mountain.” This mountain represents the light in your image — the lights, the darks, and the midtones. Ideally, the “mountain” will spread across the whole image and will peak towards the center. Now, you can see in my photo that the photo did a good job of peaking in center (shows that it had decent exposure) but I am a little short on the extreme ends of the tonal ranges. To correct that, I moved the black triangle on the left until it hit the mountain and the white triangle on the right until it hit the mountain.
This was the result
Now, this is much better but I was hoping for a more light and airy feel for this specific photo. In order to do that, I moved the grey triangle, which represents the midtones in the image, and moved it to the left, lightening up the whole image. I watched my image the whole time so I could stop when it looked right.
Okay, it is looking much better. However, lightening up the midtones seemed to wash out my photo a little. Good thing that is easy to fix! Above my levels layer, I added an adjustment layer for brightness and contrast.
With this layer I just added a touch of brightness and a bit more contrast. I just watched my photo until it had the look I was going for.
A quick sharpening of the eyes (another tutorial for another day!) and here is the final result!
See the amazing difference when you do the conversion yourself? And it really only takes seconds when you get the hang of it.
And now my photo is ready for my scrapbook page!
(credits: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE by Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs. Stitching by Syrin at Catscrap. Alpha by Libby Weifenbach at SSD, teeny tiny mini stamps by CD Muckosky at Little Dreamer Designs, fonts are Mom’s Typewriter and Susie’s Hand).
Here are some other photos that benefited from a custom black and white conversion
Don’t let actions and defaults keep you from having gorgeous black and whites. Do the conversions yourself and you will LOVE the difference!
Thanks heaps for this. I’ve been scared of black and whites until now because they always looked so… grey. Now they just work. Ta!
Thanks for the show-how!! I tried it on out and it worked SUPER! I look forward to every new post, thanks for opening the daily digi
Wow! Now I am anxiously waiting for the eye sharpening one – thanks SO MUCH, Janet. I can’t believe I’ve had PSE for three years and never got my black and whites looking this great! Now I feel like I have to go back and redo everything!
Marvelous b&w photos…..thank you for these great tips!
very cool! I love this tut=) Know what I would love even more………If there was a downloadable pdf so when I’m sitting on my bed in the basement (with no internet access) playing with my pictures and want to remember how to do this….I can open the pdf instead of dragging my lazy hiney upstairs to get on the internet. lol
I can’t thank you enough for these amazing tips. I have always struggled to get my b/w photos to be better. I like to edit all my photos by hand instead of using actions. Thank you, Thank you!!!
YOWSA! LOVE your conversions, my goodness! I use PSP so I need to take some time to figure out the equivalent steps, but you have me itching to find the time to do it, thanks
I can’t wait to see how you sharpen the eyes.
You did such a great job of explaining this! Thank you so much – my B/W pics will thank you forever.
And I hope you let us in on the eye sharpening, too, please!!!
Thank you thank you thank you for the gradient map tut. The results are stunning and dramatic. I can’t wait to try it out!
That is so awesome! I love your end result black and white!
I have Macromedia Fireworks so it doesn’t work quite the same way and I’ll have to figure out how to do something similar … but it’s nice to know anyway!
I really, really, really want to know how to sharpen the eyes!!! PLEASE do that one soon!!!
[...] to share some knowledge from the The Daily Digi website. Today my tip is to visit their post about better black & white photos! I often use black & white photos so I am not limited to a kit by it’s colors. So hop on [...]
Thanks again for another great tip… from a converted mozilla user!! Also love the journalling on the layout of your daughter
I love using gradient map to turn color into b&w. I also add an adjustment layer for curves. (I think there is a way to do this in PSE, but I mostly use CS4.)
After all my other adjustment layers, I add a curve layer. I select the very center point and then arrow up to raise the overall brightness. It is subtle, but helpful. Sometimes it seems to help more than brightness/contrast layer.
Maybe it’s just my printer, though? Or maybe I just love, love, love curve adjustment layers.
Thank you a great tut that even I can do (LOL)!
wow! thank you for teaching us this simple process with amazing results!
Great tutorial, my black & whites look so much better now!
just found your site & i love it!!! so excited to follow along and learn new tips & tricks.
great idea!
Um, WOW! I knew about the gradient map trick, but adding the other two adjustment layers is the extra step I needed! Thank you! I’m learning so much for your site! Love it!
Thanks for the great tutorial. I have always struggled with b/w but love this method.
I absolutely love the clarity of this tutorial, Janet. I just experimented with it, and my photo really does look better this way. Thanks for the great tip (and the awesome site).
Great Tut. I will be trying this one out soon.
Anna
OooooooooOHH! Must. Try. This. Today!
Awesome tutorial. I actually feel like I can give this a try. Many thanks!!
Excellent tutorial. Am going off to tinker with some of my black and whites to see if an adjustment layer can make them pop.
I’ve been lazy – thanks for making it clearer about making time to use the gradient map!
Great tutorial! I’m definitely going to give it a whirl.
what an awesome tutorial! Thank you, thank you , thank you! I can’t wait for the sharpening of the eyes tutorial!
Awesome Tutorial! This is the photo effect I’ve been dying to achieve!! I hope you come along soon with the eye tutorial too!!!!
Great post! I learn so much from this website. I can’t wait for the tutorial about eye sharpening – it made such a difference!
Thank you, wonderful tutorial! Can’t wait for more! Love the blog everyday.
Love this tutorial! Thanks so much
Great tutorial. I have always wanted to know how to to do this. Can’t wait to give it a try!
Great instructions, well written! Congratulations on all the great content of your site–you’ve definitely made it a can’t miss!
ok ok ok ..that is fabulous! I so need to know / learn how to do the eye pop in PSE. Please don’t wait too long before you shared that info.
B/W conversions are always a source of frustration for me and I vowed to get better at it this year. This tutorial will help that! Thanks so much!
great tutorial and wonderful pictures! thanks for the help!
Thank you for another great tutorial. I am using PSE to convert lots of African pictures from my daughter’s mission trip for a wall collage in her new apartment. So this is very timely. Thanks again!
I will definitely have to try this. Love the page…thanks for including your credits!
thanks so much for the fabulous tutorial! this is something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do correctly and it’s easier than I thought! Thanks!!!!
thanks for posting this. i always like hearing new ways to get better b/w photos. yours are lovely btw! =)
Wow – what an amazing difference. I use GIMP not photoshop but I’m going to have a play and see if I can come up with a method based on your tutorial. Thanks!