Black and white conversion (with a twist)

Introduction

There's more to black and white conversion than just desaturation. In this short tutorial, I'll go through a real-world case step-by-step.

Here is the Photoshop action you'll be needing: Right-click and select save as

The procedure

0. The starting point
Here's the image after very basic RAW-conversion:

The starting point

There isn't much that is needed in the RAW-conversion stage. Try to ensure that no color channels are burned (at least where it matters) and don't apply too much contrast (we'll be adding it later).

1. Run the BW-action
Create a new layer group and make sure it is active. Run the BW-conversion action (linked in the start of this post).

The layer palette will look like this:

There are three new layers: one for each color (red, green, and blue). Each layer contains color information, separated from the other colors

2. Adjust the opacity of the green and blue layers
Note how the red layer is at the bottom. The idea here is to adjust the green and blue layers - this will determine how much of each color information layer will be shown in the final BW image. Since the red layer is at the bottom, it should stay at 100% opacity, unless you want to have some color from the original image to get through (this can actually be quite interesting sometimes).

When adjusting the layers, pay special attention to how the tones in the performer's face behave. Try to find a dramatic and interesting look.

I ended up with the following opacities:
18% blue
24% green
100% red
Note that it is not important what the precentages are as numbers - keep your eyes on the picture. I only give the figures here to ensure you can try to reproduce the results.

Here's the image after adjusting the opacities:

Rather gray, but we'll deal with that in the following steps.

3. Curves
Next, we'll adjust curves (note: it is important that you use an adjustmentlayer that goes on top of the three black-and-white layers):

When the curves dialog is open, the mouse cursor becomes an eyedroper tool. by clikcing-and-dragging it on the image, it will show where on the curve the tone under the cursor is. Drag the cursor over the skin tones of the face. As a rule, here the steepest part of the curve should be.

Here's the image after this step:

4. More curves
I often use more than one curves layer. This is only a convenience factor - I find it easier to tweak with a second curves adjustment layer if the first one is heavily bent already.

[img width=544 height=800]http://www.bjorklid.net/jako/bwproced/06-second-curves-f.jpg[/img]

The intention is to add even more punch to the picture. I like my BW images to be contrasty, even if it might mean that the black parts lack detail.

Here's what the layers palette looks like after this step:

5. Add film noise (optional)

I added film noise, following these instructions

I experimented palcing the noise layer on top of, in between and below the two curves layers. Placing it between them seemed to give the most pleasing results. Here's how the layers palette looks now:

6. Painting the curves mask to selectively darken the image
Notice in the image in step #4 how the perforemers left hand is rather light. It seems to compete for attention with the face, and I see this as undesirable. So as a quick fix, I painted the mask of the "Curves 1" layer. This brought the lumionsity of that part down. I ended up with this solution by just experimenting.

Here's the result:

7. Local contrast enhancement & healing
Last, I try the local contrast ehnancement trick (see here for instructions)
This adds more punch to the picture.

I also added a new layer on top of all the others and used the heal tool to clone out a few distracting blobs of light.

Here's the end result:

Here's a 100% crop for those who like the grain:

And finally, here's a scaled down 8-bit PSD file with all the layers: right-click and choose save as