August 24, 2007
Tips for better black and white conversions
Do you want to know how to get the best black and white conversions out of Lightroom? This short movie tutorial on Lightroom black and white conversions starts with a few basic tips on how to use the Auto-Adjust Grascale button in conjunction with the White Balance sliders. I then show how to use the target adjustment tool in the Grayscale panel to pick the areas of a photograph that you wish to lighten or darken. Finally, I demonstrate how to desaturate the colors via the HSL panel and achieve a grayscale conversion. The main advantage of using this method is that you can usually achieve smoother looking tones and dark, contrasty skies that are almost completely noise-free.
Download size: 24.2 MB. Length: 11.06 minutes.
Note that the techniques discussed in this movie are also covered in detail in The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book published by Peachpit Press.
Excellent tutorial! I don’t do a lot of B&W conversions but now I’m not going to go near the Grayscale conversions but instead use the technique described. I did notice noise in skies using the old method and know I know why. I especially like the added color controls for tweaking.
Is that your house Martin?
Thanks Andrew.
>Is that your house Martin?
Alas no. Besides, the sky is blue, so how could it be in England? Having said that, the sun is out today for the first time in ages!
Martin
Martin,
That Rocks…..Thank you
I get so much more out of a video then I do with print.I can see/hear what is being said
With the two together(your book & now a video) awsume!Really helps
I liked the several examples of photos as well as the why different methods work better then the other.Explained very well…..Great tutorial
Looking forward to additional videos
Thanks again,
David
Great Tutorial. For some reason I cannot save the Desaturate preset (Lr1.1/Win). I save the preset but it does not move the Sat sliders. Weird.
I found that the preset only works if I save the full color block, not only the Sat box.
Thanks for the tutorial!
However, I am having the same experience as adias, and using the same system.
If I uncheck any of the sub-settings under Color the checkbox next to Color changes from a checkmark to just a pale green fill, unlike the hyphen that appears in your video.
I can still save the preset, but it does not function (no change occurs when employed) unless I leave all the sub-settings checked (then it works).
Any thoughts on what is happening?
The problem that adias and Rob are having is that Martin was incorrect about which box to check.
The “Saturation” box is for the Saturation slider in the Basic panel, and the “Color Adjustments” box is for the HSL/Color/Grayscale panel.
Sorry about that guys. I did of course mean that you should check the Color Adjustments settings check box (it does kind of throw you that the Saturation box is grouped in this section and not with the other Basic settings). But anyway, the video has been edited to show the correct setting box to check.
Thanks for clearing that up!! Much appreciated.
Wonderful video, Martin. Thank you. I have a question about how this all works! These sliders, am I correct in guessing that they are not adjusting color channels, as the channel mixer in PS does, but are adjusting color in the way of selective color in PS?
And why is there such an improvement in noise using the HSL sliders?
Maybe this is covered in your book–I did have a copy, but unfortunately left it behind on a photo trip to Italy. I’ll have to order a new new one!
Gloria
Outstanding. Imagine trying all that in the old darkroom!!
Hi Gloria,
Sorry for the delay, I have been away on holiday. To be honest I can’t tell you why exactly it is that the blue channel noise can be less noticeable using the HSL method compared to the grayscale mixer method. I know that the Black and White adjustment in Photoshop CS3 is mixing the channels the same way as you could with the Channel Mixer adjustment. But I can’t describe for you how the the HSL controls work exactly, but they appear to work similarly to how the Hue/Saturation adjustment in Photoshop works (only a lot better and with a more truer response in my opinion).
As an internal tester I did do a lot of testing with some sky image files to help the engineers refine the blue colour conversions for the grayscale mixer (which is certianly improved upon the earlier public betas). But still I find myself preferring to use the HSL method in cases like this. And yes, there is a section in the book about using this method of black and white adjustment along with a few other black and white conversion tips.
Martin
An excellent tutorial; thanks a lot! I was using a similar method in Photoshop, with HSL and colour adjustment layers, and it seems to be a good technique in Lightroom, too.
Btw, I see from the final two images of the filmstrip in the tutorial that you visited Stockholm; hope you enjoyed your stay! And, welcome back!
Dear Martin,
I really enjoyed this video, clear and concise – super. It was close to what I’ve been looking for but I’m not sure if it is there yet! Please can I explain – I’m working with 5×4 and 10×8 B&W negatives scanned as RGB (16BIT) and then converting them to B&W images. My question was whether I should follow the advice in this video or whether you could advise on a way of working with these negatives in lightroom?
Thanks again, and for any help you could offer.