On Aug 29, 2005, at 12:47 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
... What's paramount, IMO, is understanding B&W. I've seen a lot
of tutorials
on B&W conversions, and the best results often come from those who are
familiar with B&W work ...
I agree with that part of Shel's response very much. However, I use a
B&W rendering approach based on the Photoshop CS Channel Mixer about
95% of the time and find it to be more facile and more precise than
most of the other dozen or two approaches I've seen, if not as
amenable to scripting as some of the others.
Perhaps I'll take up the challenge and write up a tutorial myself.
Meantime, issue 35 of the UK rag "Digital Photographer" is a
monochrome issue. They present four or five different B&W rendering
workflows (including at least one with Channel Mixer), in addition to
the ones Shel mentioned.
All of them work ... the key is knowing what you're after in B&W
rendering and seeing the manifold ways of achieving it.
Godfrey
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Shorthand schema for B&W rendering with Photoshop CS[2]:
- Perform RAW conversion to maximise and window data with as many
tonal values expressed as possible. Adjust Exposure, Brightness,
Contrast, Color Temp & Tint, Shadows in that order. Output to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RGB file (TIFF or Photoshop).
- Once open in Photoshop, apply a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer, set
monochrome switch ON, set R=20%, G=75%, B=5%. Keep histogram window
open and tweak settings until full tonal range is expressed on the
histogram, without burning highlights.
That gives you the basic monochrome data. Now tuning:
- Adding Curves Adjustment Layers UNDER the Channel Mixer layer
allows you to tune tonal values distinguished by channel as
appropriate. Use with masks to selectively apply such adjustments.
- Adding Curves Adjustment Layers and masks OVER the Channel mixer
layer allows you to tune total grayscale tonal curves selectively.
- For sharpening, I duplicate the base image layer and then apply
Smart Sharpening and or Unsharp Mask operations. Appending a layer
mask allows selective application of the sharpening operations, as
does setting the sharpening layer's transparency.
Once the results are looking as you want them, Save the file, then
convert to Grayscale 2.2 gamma color space. Save As to a new file.
All layers will be flattened and you can do any small adjustments on
that required for printing or web display.
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