Teach Me Tuesdays | Black & White

There are a lot of ways to convert a photo to black and white and while one method may convert seamlessly onto one photo, it may not convert so well onto the next. The key is learning when a conversion works and when it doesn’t. I’m going to be showing you 2 methods that I use 90% off the time. 🙂 First, as always, start with a good photo. I’ve heard a lot of people/photographers suggest that if a photo looks bad in color, to just turn in black and white. I have to disagree…I think the key ingredient in creating a beautiful black and white photo is to have a beautiful color photo to start with. Here is the image I’m using…

The easiest way to convert a photo to black and white is to decrease the saturation. Go to your adjustment palette and desaturate your photo -100.

That will give you this result. In my opinion this is too flat and lacking the depth that I love in black and whites.

This next step is where I create my #1 method for a black and white conversion. I take the above photo at the stage it is at (without flattening it) and duplicate the layer (vibrance layer) and change the layer’s blending mode to ‘soft light.’ This gives the photo some contrast and more depth.

Here is my end result for method #1. If I feel like it needs a little more, I’ll add a little contrast. 🙂 I then flatten the image and I’m done!

Alright…so onto method 2! This method gets used a little more then #1 and especially if I find the method #1 isn’t quite giving me the B&W I want.

Again, I start with my color image and add a gradient map. After you click on the ‘gradient map’ in step one you’ll want to click on the rectangle gradient to bring up the ‘gradient editor’. Here is where you’ll adjust your photo to achieve the look you want.

Here is my final image. The shadows are a little richer and she is a little brighter without blowing the whites or giving the image too much contrast.

The final 3 side by side…

So, there you have it 🙂 2 easy methods for converting your image to a basic black and white. 🙂 Feel free to comment on anything you’d like to see in the coming weeks 😉