There are many techniques to convert a digital color picture into a digital black and white picture especially when using PhotoShop. The picture below was taken in digital color on March 31st, 2007 at the Carmel Mission in Monterey, California.
Nikon D50 • Nikkor 80-200 • 200 mm • 1/640s (ev -1.33) • f/9.0
3.31.2007 10:00AM
I picked that shot to try some color to black and white conversion techniques. Here are a few steps I applied and the final result can be seen at the end.
I first desaturated the image, removing its color information, using the Hue/Saturation layer effect. Now, it might have been more appropriate to use the Channel Mixer layer effect, but I wanted to try the saturation path.
Below is the Hue/Saturation palette, with the saturation level set to -100.
Here is the desaturated picture:
I found that the sky was too bright and was taking the attention away from the stone texture of the dome of the Carmel Mission. So, here is a trick I find interesting: using the Color Replace feature to darken the sky. this is not a layer effect, and therefore you need to apply it directly to your image layer (a destructive operation in this case). You may want to duplicate your image layer which can later give you the option to merge the two on selective areas using masks and transparencies.
Open the Color replace feature (menu Image>Adjustment>Replace Color…). Then click on the photo into the color that you want to replace, or in this case darken. Then change the Lightness. I had to adjust the Fuzziness value to make sure the blend between the sky and the dome was smooth.
The result shows a more dramatic sky, bringing the attention to the dome which is now brighter than the background:
A good black and white photo needs to show a wide range of light from true white to true black, at least this is what I heard now several times. I’m sure there are cases when it doesn’t apply. In this case I can increase the brightness and contrast to extend the histogram range.
I also removed the distracting stone on the forefront.
Here is the final layer palette:
And here is the final image:
I printed this image on an 11×14 using my usual Costco online service. Although the result was looking good, I was not satisfied with the printout paper and rendition. The Costco store located in Mountain View, CA, doesn’t provide many paper options, you can only chose Lustre or Glossy, and only color process. So, printing a digital black and white on a glossy photo paper using a color workflow doesn’t give the real black and white finish.
I entered the print to the Black and White competition at the Palo Alto Camera Club on 4.4.07. The judge liked the decision to make it simple as photos of the Carmel Mission are usually busy with lots of details. She also liked the precision of the details, the range of white to black, and the decision to cut it, breaking its symmetrical geometry.