Black and White Photoshop Conversion Techniques. A quick glance through any photography or fashion magazine, or at the photos on social websites like Flickr, confirms that black and white photography is as popular as ever. With the coming of digital though, one important thing has changed. In the days of film photography, you shot on black and white film. Film Photoshop Actions' title='Film Photoshop Actions' />Photoshop Brushes Brusheezy is a HUGE collection of Photoshop Brushes, Photoshop Patterns, Textures, PSDs, Actions, Shapes, Styles, Gradients to download, or share Photoshop Actions to Emulate Vintage Black White Films and Film Grain. Black and White Photoshop Conversion. Black White Photoshop Actions. Photoshop. Now, with digital cameras, you take photos in colour and then convert them to black and white. In this article we run through the most commonly used black and white conversion methods, outlining the pros and cons of each. Black And White Photoshop Actions' title='Black And White Photoshop Actions' />Instructions are provided for Photoshop CS and if the techniques available, Photoshop Elements. If youre looking for premium quality Photoshop Actions, then choose from our collection of creative options on Envato Elements. A single low subscription gives you unlimited downloads of these Photoshop actions and thousands of other items. For example, you could start with this set of 3. Photoshop actions. It gives you a wide range of options for creating different black white effects depending on the look youre going for. Black White Photoshop Actions. How to Convert a Color Photo to Black and White. Converting to black and white digitally has a number of advantages. With film, the black and white conversion essentially happened at the time of shooting. If you wanted to change the nature of the black and white conversion, you could only do it by placing a coloured filter on the lens a red filter, for instance, makes blue skies much darker. Now, by starting with a colour photo and converting it to black and white in Photoshop, you have complete control over the conversion. Darkening a blue sky is easy, once you know how, and you can decide exactly how dark you want it to be. The best cameras for black and white photography are digital SLRs. Improve your photos instantly with hundreds of high quality Photoshop actions and photography. Advanced Photoshop. Black White Series Photoshop Actions 12. Our Black and White Photoshop action suite contains beautiful conversions, film emulations, authentic tones and real world film grains. Free Black White Photoshop Actions that will miraculously transform your color photos into bold and impressive black whites. High quality black and white Photoshop Actions and photography filters. Various styles including retro, matte, and faded effects are included. How to use Black White Photoshop Actions Tutorial Duration. How to Create a Faded Black and White Vintage Effect in Photoshop Duration 813. BvFurNM/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Free Black And White Actions' title='Free Black And White Actions' />For the best possible conversion, start by shooting in RAW. Then, in your RAW conversion software, output the photo as a 1. Tiff file. 1. 6 bit files have a lot more information to work with than 8 bit files, which makes for a better conversion with smoother tonal graduations. Most digital SLRs and some compacts have a black and white mode. The camera is making the conversion for you, and the results are usually poor, giving flat, washed out photos. Avoid this mode, and use the following techniques instead. Black and White Conversions. Photoshop and Photoshop Elements offer both destructive and non destructive black and white conversion techniques. Destructive methods are ones that cant be re adjusted afterwards. Once youve made the conversion, the only way to change it is to undo the conversion and start again. Non destructive methods use Photoshops adjustment layers. The changes that you make to your photo are stored in a layer, and the original photo remains unchanged underneath. Then, when youre done, you flatten the image and its as this stage that Photoshop makes all the changes to the photo permanent. You can edit the conversion at any time before flattening the image by clicking on the adjustment layers icon circled. Non destructive photo editing is always better than destructive editing. The destructive methods are included here for completeness. These instructions are for Photoshop CS 3 and Photoshop Elements 6. Other versions will be similar. Convert to Greyscale DestructiveThe simplest black and white conversion method, converting to grayscale discards all the colour information in the photo. Photoshop CS 3 Image Mode Grayscale. Click DiscardPhotoshop Elements Image Mode Grayscale. Click OKPros Quick and easy. Cons You have no control over the conversion. Use the HueSaturation Tool Non destructiveThis method gives exactly the same result as converting to grayscale. The only advantage is that its available as an adjustment layer, and can be used as part of a non destructive editing process. Photoshop CS 3 and Photoshop Elements Layer New Adjustment Layer HueSaturation. Click OKMove the saturation slider all the way to the left 1. OKPros Quick and easy and and can be applied as an adjustment layer in both Photoshop CS 3 and Elements 6. Cons You have no control over the conversion. LAB Color Method DestructiveThis technique converts your photo from RGB mode to Lab mode, which records the brightness and colour values separately, then discards the colour information leaving a black and white image. Its not available in Photoshop Elements. Photoshop CS 3 Image Mode Lab Color. Go to the Channels window if its already open if not go to Window Channel and select the Lightness channel. Image Mode Grayscale. Click OKPros Gives a better black and white conversion than the convert to grayscale and huesaturation methods. Cons Destructive editing process that doesnt give you much control. Gradient Map Non destructiveThe gradient map tool maps a black and white gradient to the brightness values of your photo. Dark areas become black or dark grey and highlights white or light grey. Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements. Press D to reset the foreground and background colours to black and white. Layer New Adjustment Layer Gradient Map. Click OKPros Quick and easy non destructive black and white conversion. Cons No control over the conversion. Channel Mixer Non destructiveThe Channel mixer is the first black and white conversion tool listed here that begins to use the full potential of the information contained in the colour photo. Colour photos have three colour channels red, green and blue. These primary colours combine to make the millions of colours in your photo. The Channel mixer conversion method lets you adjust the ratios between the red, geen and blue channels. Lightening the value of a channel lightens colours close to it on the colour wheel and darkens the colours that are opposite it. Increase the value of the red channel for instance, and youll make the red tones in your photo lighter, and the blue ones darker. This has the effect of lightening skin tones and darkening blue skies. The Channel mixer is the digital equivalent of black and white photographers using colour filters. Setting the brightness of the red channel to 1. Its not available in Photoshop Elements. Photoshop CS Layer New Adjustment Layer Channel Mixer. Tick the monochrome box. Move the Red, Green and Blue sliders to the left and right to lighten and darken different tones in the photo. The total of the three sliders should be 1. Click OK when youre done. Examples Original photo Red 8. Green 1. 0, Blue 1. The setting of 8. Red 2. 0, Green 4. Blue 4. 0. The setting of 2. Pros Gives you a high degree of control over the black and white conversion. Cons Not as flexible as the next two techniques. Not available in Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements Convert to Black and White Tool DestructiveThis method is a simplified version of Photoshops Channel Mixer adjustment layer. Mozilla Firefox 35 Offline Installer. Its only available in Photoshop Elements and isnt available as an adjustment layer so its destructive editing. Having said that, if you can live with the small previews, its a very flexible black and white conversion technique. Photoshop Elements Enhance Convert to Black and White. Move the colour sliders to the left and right to lighten and darken the corresponding tones. Use the Contrast slider to compensate for changes in contrast. You can also select a preset style from the menu on the left. Click OK when youre done. Vintage Black and White Action. Paste this code at checkout when you are done shopping. Not sure where to paste it View instructions. Paste this code at checkout when you are done shopping. Not sure where to paste it Visit i.