Joel Tjintjelaar

There are numerous ways to convert a picture to black and white with Photoshop. Some are easy, some are hard. Some give great results, some give poor results. In this tutorial I’ll explain some of the easy conversions and their pros and cons.

Adjusting the color image by looking at the histogram

Before we even think about converting to black and white we need to make sure that the color image looks all right. If an image in color looks flat or underexposed, it will also look flat or underexposed in black and white. The best way to see if your image needs adjusting is by looking at the histogram of the picture. To view the histogram go to Window –> Histogram. Or go to Image –> Adjustments –> Levels. You should have a full range of colors, if not: adjust your image. Simple and powerful adjustments, without loss of any valuable information stored in your photo, can be made with Levels and Curves. This is in general a very easy method to affect the highlights, mid-tones or dark parts of the photo. Don’t use the option ‘Brighten’ since this option will simply remove valuable data in your photo.

— Photoshop Levels

— Photoshop Levels

As you can see on the histogram we have lots of shadows (on the left) and midtones (in the middle), but we hardly have any highlights (on the right). So we are going to make some adjustments to increase the highlights in this image (basically you’re adding more whites in to the picture).

Just slide the white triangle unto the point where the histogram goes flat and press OK.

— Photoshop Levels

Now let’s take a look at the improved histogram. This looks much better. We now have a full range of colors and tones. Highlights, shadows and mid-tones are all present in this picture. Notice the white stripes in the histogram. This represents the absence of certain tones in the picture. Don’t worry: the human eye doesn’t even notice these absences in the picture. The white stripes are the result of artificially putting more whites in to the picture (it also happens when putting more blacks or mid-tones into a picture).

Desaturation

When your histograms looks all right, you’re ready to convert to black and white with Photoshop. The first method I’ll explain is desaturation.

This probably is the easiest way to convert to black and white.

1. Open an image.
2. Go to Image –> Adjustments –> Hue/Saturation.
3. You’ll see three options: Hue, Saturation and Lightness. We are going to move the slider of the saturation option to the complete left.
4. That’s it, here’s your black and white image.

As you can see, desaturating an image is an easy conversion. But is it any good?

Here’s the before and after of a picture I used for this conversion.

— Desaturation Before Shot

— Desaturation After Shot

It looks a bit dull to me. The image is quite flat and looks gray overall. Not really what we’re looking for. We want a dynamic image full of (visible) variations between the blacks and white. Besides that, the desaturation tool doesn’t allow any control over the image. We’re stuck with the presets that Photoshop uses for desaturating an image.

Grayscale

Another easy way to convert to black and white with Photoshop is setting the mode of the image to Grayscale.

1. Open your image.
2. Go to Image –> Mode –> Grayscale
3. Press Discard when asked.
4. There it is, a black and white image.

The image most probably will look dull, flat and mostly gray, just like the result of the desaturation tool. Yet again we don’t have any control over the image and we’re stuck again with the presets of Photoshop.

Conclusion

Although Desaturation and Grayscale are easy methods to convert an image to black and white with Photoshop, it isn’t quite what we’re looking for. Most people think that black and white is just the mere absence of color, but that’s where they’re wrong. Indeed, there’s no color in black and white, but that’s not what it’s all about. Do you want to extract the colors of an image or do you want to create a powerful scene with a certain mood to it? In the next tutorials I’ll explain about conversions that DO work.

One Comment