Color to B/W in Photoshop (How To)

It might seem funny at first glance, but in fact there are many ways to do just about anything in Photoshop; black and white conversions are no exception. As a photographer this is probably more important to me than it is to most web designers, but with digital photography becoming so popular, I think a lot of people fall into both categories.

So this article on Photoshop black and white conversions is the sum of my experimentation and book learning on the subject. There are a couple images ( landscape & wildlife ) throughout the article to compare different techniques with, and commentary on what works best in different situations.

Here's an example ... hopefully it gives people an idea about the quality of the article:

 

A nice read and put together well.
Some of your text could be improved to make a more professional article and you should improve the layout of your text (its right up to the edge of the page!) but your site makes a good reference.
Unfortunately I can't see any of the links for the moth so only the colour image reveals.
There are always more ways to create B&W images (eg. lab colour) and there's always the facility to alter the tones via curves, levels etc. Perhaps, as a way of improving on your article you could suggest some of these approaches to help your readers. Also an explanation on the tonal range and how to identify missing tones within your images. You might also want to mention the conversion process available in the camera raw plug-in, something I'm converting from far more often now.

Good work

 

Pretty nice tutorial, this doesn't show a good way to convert images to B&W. People often just changes the color mode to B&W (bad thing to so since they make the images look flat... seeing how they lack contrast). Good job

 

It's easy to do a desaturation and you get a black and white effect.

 

yes, but the whole point of this post isn't to get a result, its to create a great result and when dealing with B&W images you can't rely on a simple option to get a great result. It requires a good eye, a good process and an attention to getting the best of your image.

 

Thanks a lot for the great feedback!

You're right, I should at least go over the concept of tonal range and clipping. That's pretty important. I haven't tried using LAB to convert color images to black and white, will have to do some experimenting. Thanks for the tip!

 

when I want a B&W image I add a new layer- paint in in black and change the layer mode to color.
that's it.