Converting to B&W in Photoshop Elements 5

[adamsfour]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to the digital SLR world and stumbling through some editing issues.
I want to convert some photos I have into black and white, but I am getting a lot of gray photos, I am not getting the crisp black and white look that I want.

Here is one of the photos I am working with and here is what it looks like if I desaturate it or use the B&W preset in Elements.

Can anyone please help me?
Thanks,
Summer

 

[laguano]

I do not have elements 5, but i do have CS2,

if this is what you are looking for,

then i would see if elements has the levels or curves feature to it, either is fine, but i prefer curves. They can manipulate the shadows and highlights,
although i just did this real fast, you can perfect the picture in a matter of moments.

 

[adamsfour]

Yes! Thank you very much. I can adjust the color curves in Elements, I probably don't have as much control as CS2, but it came out much better than before.

 

[JenR]

I have been experimenting with BW conversions in PSE 5, too. I don't have any really awesome tricks to share; but a lot of people use a "gradient map" layer set to black and white to do the conversion.

Also, it seems like my BW's seem to need an extra contrast boost.

Hope that helps!

~jen

 

[ANDS!]

Curves is definitely a better way of punching up your B&W's to add contrast, and address the issue of no tonal range from shadows to highlights (something you can see in the histogram pallete).