Digital B&W?

[Mary]

Hey everyone, im just wondering whats the best way to do black and white photos using digital. I have taken a few shots in colour and then converted them to greyscale on photoshop CS, I find that the peoples faces are very dark and murky, any advice on what to do??? :???: thanx

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

There are several different methods to convert a color photo to black & white...some are more flexible that others.

Try using the channel mixer and click on monochrome...then play with the sliders to adjust the image.

There are plenty of great 'actions' that can be downloaded for converting to B&W. The one I use was made by a guy named Wally, who used to hang out around here.

 

[darich]

It's also worth pointing out that different methods give different looks. And the method that works well for one picture may not give the best results for another image.
It's worth trying a conversion using a couple of different methods - you'll be surpriused at the difference in the results

 

[ksmattfish]

Learn to use levels/curves, the channel mixer, and unsharp mask.

Converting to grayscale is like using the channel mixer at 30 red, 60 green, 10 blue. Sometimes that's fine (it's similar to the color sensitivity of Kodak Pan-X 125), but the channel mixer is simple enough, and offers you more options.

A knowledge of levels and curves is essential for contrast and tone adjustment. You can use them globally, or select an area, and adjust locally.

USM used for manipulating local contrast (low sharpen percentage and high radius) is also very handy.

Just google these terms, maybe along with "BW" and "CS", and you will find thousands of tutorials. And of course there are many, many other effective techniques and methods that folks are using.

 

[ANDS!]

Agree with the above. Find a quick B&W tutorial, and then apply that to your image; once you start working with levels, curves, and high-contrast B&W images - youll start sussing out your own techniques to achieve the results you're looking for.

 

[Fiendish Astronaut]

This is a good tutorial which gives a few different methods. I like the Hue-Saturation Adjustment Layer method...

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-black-white.htm

 

[Mary]

thanx guys
tis great to get some answers on what i can do, goin to check that site out now,