Best Way to Convert to B&W?

Claude B. wrote: I agree Silver Effex Pro is the very best one. 
It now free with a bunch of other good on Google Nik Collection.   www.google.com/nikcollection/

+1 on this. Silver Effex is good stuff.

Scotty wrote:

Joves wrote:

Hassner wrote: I'm a Photoshop user too.

Here is my method:
Click on: Image, then Adjustments, then Channel Mixer.
A window opens.
On that window, click in the block bottom left that says Monochrome.
The image will look black&white.
Use the sliders to give your image different looks as if taken with coloured filters.
Click OK when you like the tonal values.

Hope that helps?

Yeah pretty much waht I do as well. Also I use Desaturate with the Color Channels to get the desired tonal effect. Works in either case. Then it is contrasting it, and adding, or subtracting noise for the final appearance.

NEVER NEVER NEVER desaturate for black and white.  It destroys tonal range.

Totally untrue if you know how to work it.

Joves wrote:

Scotty wrote:

Joves wrote:

Hassner wrote: I'm a Photoshop user too.

Here is my method:
Click on: Image, then Adjustments, then Channel Mixer.
A window opens.
On that window, click in the block bottom left that says Monochrome.
The image will look black&white.
Use the sliders to give your image different looks as if taken with coloured filters.
Click OK when you like the tonal values.

Hope that helps?

Yeah pretty much waht I do as well. Also I use Desaturate with the Color Channels to get the desired tonal effect. Works in either case. Then it is contrasting it, and adding, or subtracting noise for the final appearance.

NEVER NEVER NEVER desaturate for black and white.  It destroys tonal range.

Totally untrue if you know how to work it.

You lose tonal range because you remove the information to edit with.

Another fan of Nik Silver Efex here!

Scotty is right.  Don't desaturate,  create a black and white layer.  I like doing that via nik silver efex now free. The film simulations are awesome. 

I have Nik Silver Efex and while everyone raves about it, I can't find a preset that I really like. I have to do a lot of adjusting and tweeking to get what I want. I usually just end up doing a B&W adjustment layer in Photoshop. 

Shadowfixer1 - you've got some great shots in your gallery!

Re: presets, have you given Macphun Tonality Pro a try? The ability to use layers, brushes/masks and create luminosity masks (per layer) is pretty cool IMO.

Does that work with Photoshop or stand alone?

Karen Comella wrote: Does that work with Photoshop or stand alone?

I think it's a plugin, but it works on lightroom, aperture and photoshop...might want to check though.

Claude B. wrote: One good way to know and see if a scene (street, country scene, peoples, etc...) is to adjust your camera for B & W that way, you can see immediately in B & W before the click. I’m in RAW all the time witch mean when I transfer you see the picture in color, that’s mean your color it’s not lost; from that base, you can change to B & W because you’ve seen those picture before the camera click. 

Only the fact to eliminate the color in the camera, it remote the distracting color, the way to see different it’s magic! 

I also have my default at B&W, easier to see if you got the image you wanted without the colour...

I also shoot RAW+JPEG and use the raw converter to adjust the B&W image...