Photography: Monochrome With Photoshop

Photography: Monochrome With Photoshop
by David Bigwood

As a freelance I have to capture the images that magazines want and 99 plus% want everything in glorious colour. So, as I no longer have a darkroom, the only way for me to satisfy my craving for black and white is to convert suitable colour images to monochrome using my trusty computer.

Grayscale Mode
The simplest and quickest way was how I started and that was just to change the mode in Photoshop from RGB to Grayscale. I opened the picture, went to 'Image' in the Menu Bar and selected 'Mode' then selected 'Grayscale' from the drop down menu. This brought up a dialogue box asking if I wanted to discard all colour information. I clicked 'OK' and the job was done. I was then able to adjust the monochrome image to my liking. It couldn't get any easier. 'Easy-peasey,' as Jamie Oliver would say.

So, with the image open, go to 'Image>Mode>Grayscale' then 'Discard color information'.

In Photoshop Elements the process is the same.

Desaturate Method
As easy is the use of the 'Desaturate' command. With the original colour picture open, go to 'Image' select 'Adjustments' and 'Desaturate' from the drop down menu. The result is very similar to the Grayscale method and can also be achieved by going to 'Hue/Saturate' and reducing the 'Saturation' slider to -100.

'Image>Adjustments>Desaturate'

In Photoshop Elements, go to 'Enhance>Adjust color>Remove color'.

Channel Mixer Method
Now we come to a slightly more complicated method but one that gives a higher control than the previous two. Once again, with the original colour picture open, go to 'Image' and select 'Adjustments' then select 'Channel Mixer' from the drop down menu. This will bring up the Channel Mixer dialogue box with sliders for the Red, Green and Blue channels. When opened the sliders will be set for 100% red and 0% for the other two channels. Before you do anything, select the Monochrome box at the bottom left of the dialogue box. Then have a look at the image with 100% for each of the other two colours in turn and 0% for the rest. The results will depend upon the majority of colours in the original. You may find that one of the channels suits you perfectly, in which case you can ignore the other two by leaving them at 0 and click on 'OK'.

However, it will probably be the case that you can get a better result by mixing bits of each channel. I start generally by reducing the Red to about 50 or 60 and increasing Green to 20 to 30 and the Blue to whatever makes up 100 - you don't have to end up with 100 but the results are normally better if you do. Once I have made the initial changes, it is a matter of trial and error to come up with the best result.

The Constant slider allows adjustments of the finished image - sliding to the left produces a darker result and to the right, a lighter one. I have found that I rarely adjust this.

There is no equivalent in Photoshop Elements.

LAB Mode
Another method that produces generally good results is to use the LAB Mode. With the colour image open, go to 'Image' and select 'Mode' then choose 'Lab color'. In the Layers Window, select 'Channels' which will give you four channels, LAB, Lightness, A and B. Go to channel A and select it all then delete it. Repeat this for channel B and then go to the Lightness channel. Go to 'Image>Mode>Grayscale' click 'OK' in the dialogue box that asks whether you want to discard the other channels and you have a monochrome image to adjust to your satisfaction.

There is no equivalent in Photoshop Elements.

Any one of the completed operations above will provide me with a useable monochrome image of the particular colour image that I selected to begin with. However, all require additional work to make them into more than just a basic monochrome picture.

As you have seen, and as with so many operations in Photoshop, it is possible to get to an end result in various ways and the ones I have outlined are not the only ones that will provide a conversion to monochrome. Some swear by one method or another but I find that while I have a tendency towards the channel mixer method, there are times when it doesn't produce the result I am after. Then I will try one of the alternative methods and am pleased that I know more than one. And, sometimes, I find an interesting result that I was not expecting and that takes me down a path that I was not anticipating.