- Black and White or Monochrome can give a timeless and dramatic effect.
- It can convey a particular mood or message.
- Dark Images in Black and white can feel gritty and mysterious.
- Bright/high key images in black and white can feel inviting.
- Tonal range is important that there is a good range of grey tones and black and white.
- Black and white images often benefit from high punchy contrast and rich blacks. You can use the levels to control this.
- You can dodge and burn in Photoshop using a dodge and burn layer to selectively lighten and darken areas of an image.
- High can use noise to mimic a film grain effect and you can shoot at high ISO’s and over-sharpen.
- Using a Polarising filter will boost contrast and add detail to skies.
Edited from colour to black and white using the photoshop tecniques below the image –
Technical notes:
To create a really good black & white image in Photoshop you need to have a good quality, ‘punchy’ colour image, shot in RAW.
- Open image in RAW and do all your ‘basic edits’ by using the sliders. Adjust your clarity, saturation etc., also intensify the colour by adjusting the vibrance. (You almost want too much colour, which will work well in B&W) When you are happy with the adjustments click ‘open image’ to open it in Photoshop.
- Once in Photoshop, immediately create a duplicate layer
(Menu bar → Layer→ Duplicate Layer). NAME YOUR LAYERS! Name the 2nd layer ‘B&W’.
- Next in Menu bar go to Edit→ Fill… and a pop up window appears.
- In contents click on the 50% grey option. Then in the layer palette make the blending mode = colour. Your image will then appear black & white, without changing the original RAW file.
- Click on your original image and then at the bottom of your layers palette click on the icon that is a circle, half black and half white. This is your ‘new layer’ shortcut. Click the ‘Selective Colour’ option. When you click on this layer another window appears = Properties.
In the colour box you have a choice of colours you can adjust to enhance your black and white image.
Select a colour and then move the sliders to adjust the colours/contrast to the effect that you want to achieve. An example, if you wanted to adjust a blue sky, select ‘Blues’ and then use the sliders to lighten/darken (dodge/burn).
- To get even more contrast, you can create another ‘selective colour’ layer and repeat the process. (or Menu bar → Layer→ Duplicate Layer).
- Refine the contrast by creating a new layer using the shortcut and selecting ‘levels’. You can then adjust the histogram using the slider.
If you want your image to have a more traditional feel you can mimic traditional processes in Photoshop. To add a graininess to an image for a ‘film’ look you can experiment on a new layer.
- Create a new layer and name it ‘film grain’.
- Next in Menu bar go to Edit→ Fill… and a pop up window appears. In contents click on the 50% grey option. Next, go to menu bar → Filter → Noise → Add noise.
- A new ‘pop up’ window appears where you can make adjustments.
- As you are working in B&W,click the ‘Monochromatic’ box and the ‘Gaussian’. For a softer natural look
- You can adjust the amount of noise/intensity (%) with the slider until you get the effect you want.
Dodge (lighten) & Burn (darken)
- Create a ‘New Layer’ and name it Dodge & Burn.To dodge and burn specific areas you will use the paintbrush tool.
- Make the Blend mode ‘soft light’ and the opacity soft by moving the slider to around 40%
- Select the paintbrush icon and make the mode ‘soft light’ and the opacity to match, around 40%. Also adjust the hardness to 50% and under for a soft edge. You can also adjust the size of the brush to what works best for you.
- You then use the black square to burn (darken) and white square to dodge (lighten) areas of your choosing to enhance the mood and style of your image.
- You can create a ‘New Adjustment Layer’ and select ‘Photo filter’ and in properties choose an effect to experiment with (Sepia tones will warm your image, etc.).
● Finally, you can add textural overlays (downloaded from internet/Deviant Art (minimum 2MB)). These can be aging, vintage, film edge/borders. Copy and paste – blend ‘soft blend’ and resize to fit. Experiment!
Tips :
Try and be subtle when editing colour images with the sharpen tool on RAW plug in but with black and white I can afford to have the sharpen setting high. Make sure I don’t use the doge and burn tool in photoshop as it deconstructive and will make the quality of the image worse. Keep a bank of images that include textures (that I have shot) and anything else I may need that might compliment an image. Don’t download images from google to use as textures as they may have a high MB and also make the quality worse when placed on top of a high quality image.
ZAKARIAH 