Black & White Conversion Pointers?

[elsaspet]

I would really like to try to experiment more with Black and White conversions, but I can't seem to achieve the richness in tones that you get when shooting actual black and white film.
I've seen it done successfully, many times, by more than one member of this forum.
I'd really appreciate some tips on this. Also, you PS pros would be helpful if you could kinda dumb it down for me. I'm still a PS newbee.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice!:hugs:

 

[Nikon Fan]

There are tons of ways to convert to black and white but some don't give near the results as others.

First way, my favorite way is to add a channel mixer layer. Then you check monochrome. Then you adjust the sliders of each channel to your liking. It's sort of trial and error b/c settings don't always work well for each shot. But something I find that works for me is to move the constant left to get the blacks I want. Then move the red channel to the preferred whites...then adjust green and blue depending on the shot for the greys.

Second way, is to add a hue/saturation layer and just completely desaturate the photo. However this just makes it overal grey and lakes good contrast most of the time, so then you must adjust curves, levels, and brightness/contrast to get the desired feel.

You can also try downloading a PS action online that will do everything for you, but it might not work great with every shot.

Hopefully that helps a little...I'm sure someone else will come along and help a bit more

 

[etaf]

http://www.dpforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1440

 

[elsaspet]

Thank you guys soooo much. I can't wait to get home and try it out.:mrgreen:

 

[Big Mike]

Try this,

Make a channel mixer layer, then make a hue/saturation layer over top of that. Set the blend mode to color for the saturation layer and desaturate the image.

Then go to the channel mix layer and adjust settings to suit.