monochrome images

derived from a digtal colour photograph

we show a number of variations
in available black & white images
from a single colour master



you can also see monochrome images produced by a variety of methods

if you can't fathom out the captions
- please ask





nik - relates to Capture filters from effects set 2.0



images from the Sep23rd 2006 workshop

see also the BAKERY magic disappearing act





the original photograph


black & white
a-list
desat greyscale red channel channel mixer hue-sat lab lightness Nikon B&W
image/
adjustments/
desaturate/
discard color		 image/
mode/
geyscale/
mode/
rgb		 red channel/
mode/
greyscale/
mode/
rgb		 link link mode/
lab color/
lightness/
copy to RGB file

RAW file/
luminance

same brightness close to 30/59/11          
black & white
other ways
black & white
wierdoes
monochrome
sources
the original file wb to warm wb to cold Nikon thermal
channel
mixer
The channel mixer tool allows the user to control how much each of the three color channels (red, green and blue) contribute to the final grayscale brightness. It is undoubtedly one of the most powerful black and white conversion methods, however it may take some time to master since there are many parameters which require simultaneous adjustment.

Open this tool by clicking on Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer in Adobe Photoshop. GIMP and many other image editing programs also offer this tool, however its menu location may vary.
Channel mixer in photoshop Be sure to first click on the lower left tick box entitled "Monochrome" for black and white conversion.

It is often best to get a feel for the distribution of each color channel by first setting each of the color channels to 100% individually.

Then adjust each of the red, green and blue sliders to produce an image to your liking. For an even more pronounced effect, some colors can even have negative percentages.

The sum of the red, green, and blue percentages need to equal 100% in order to maintain roughly constant brightness, although overall brightness can also be adjusted by using the "Constant" slider at the bottom. If the aim is to mimic the luminosity perceived by the human eye, set: red=30%, green=59% and blue=11%.
hue
saturation
This technique is particularly elegant because it allows you to apply any of the entire spectrum of color filters just by dragging the hue slider.

This allows one to quickly assess which of the many combinations of color filters work best, without necessarily having one in mind when starting. It takes a little longer to setup than the channel mixer, but is actually faster to use once in place.

Open the image in Photoshop and create two separate "Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers" by following the menus: Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation...

Each window will be named "Hue/Saturation 1 or 2, - rename top to Saturation and middle to Hue.

On the top adjustment layer, set the blending mode to Color and set the saturation to its minimum of -100.

On the bottom adjustment layer, change the Hue slider to apply any of the entire spectrum of color filters.
This is the main control for adjusting the look from this technique.

The saturation slider can also be adjusted in this layer, but this time it fine-tunes the magnitude of the filter effect for a given hue.

Once all adjustments have been made, merge/flatten the layers to make these final.

B&W
filter
equivalents
% R G B
Red 75 25 0
Orange 65 20 15
Yellow 60 20 20
Green 15 55 30