MAKING A DIGITAL B&W FINE ART IMAGE

Digital SLRs are capable of taking highly saturated color images with a dynamic range that can equal or exceed color slide film. But what about B&W? With their subtle gray tones and stark highlights and shadows, B&W is a popular medium for fine art photographers.

Making a high contrast B&W image requires more than stripping the color information from an image. There are quick and easy ways to do that in Adobe Photoshop. You can select Edit|Mode|Grayscale or convert from RGB to L*a*b and then use the "L" channel.

My tutorial, "Making a Fine Art Black & White Image," describes a simple technique that will give your B&W images the sort of contrast that made Ansel Adams famous. I have also made a Photoshop action set that makes it really easy to use the technique. This learning gallery will step you through the technique.

Below is an image of an old cotton barn in rural Sneads, AL. I took the image, intending from the start to convert it to B&W.

My workflow typically begins with a round of presharpening. Then I proceed to adjust the image. Presharpening is just a light round of sharpening to restore the sharpness that was lost during digital capture. I do all of my sharpening -- presharpening, local sharpening, and final sharpening on layers. I rename the layer to remind myself what type and how much sharpening I applied. For this image, I used an Unsharp Mask sharpening with settings of 350, 0.8, 2.

Before you convert from color to B&W, you should correct your color image. I liked the late afternoon sun in the original image, so there was no need to correct the neutrals. However, the image could benefit from some increased contrast and some boosts in saturation. So, I started with Levels. Again, I work non-destructively with my images, so the corrections are all done on adjustment layers.

The highlight and shadow adjustments were all modest. I wanted to ensure that none of the highlights burned out, and since I intended to print the image on Arches Infinity fine art paper, I wanted to make sure it held lots of shadow detail. The midtone contrast adjustment was just a small tweak.

There were several saturation adjustments. All were made on the same adjustment layer. The screen shot below shows only the +10 Master channel adjustment.

Other saturation adjustments included Reds +20, Yellows +20, Greens +10, and Cyans +15. I also made a +25 hue adjustment to the Cyans.

The resulting color image is a definite improvement over the original color image. The sky has better color. The greens have more "pop." This was the starting point for my B&W conversion.

B&W conversion is done with a Selective Color adjustment layer and a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. One is used to make localized changes in contrast. The other is used to desaturate the image. My TLR B&W Conversion action set makes both layers, enters the initial settings, and renames the layers.

 

The Selective Color adjustment layer is set to Color blend mode. Before you start to adjust it, you want to have the Hue/Saturation layer in place above it. The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is initially set to -100 Saturation to desaturate the image.

With the "Desaturation Layer" in place, you can now make adjustments to the "Contrast Adjustment Layer" and watch the changes in your B&W image. You can adjust the individual color ranges, which gives you pinpoint control over the B&W conversion.

You will likely find that changes to the Highlights, Neutrals, and Blacks will make the most pronounced contrast shifts to your B&W image. Changing the Blues, Cyans, Greens, Magentas, Reds, and Yellows will tend make subtler changes in your B&W tones.

The Selective Color settings for this sample were:

If you turn off the "Desaturation Layer," you will see that the "Contrast Adjustment Layer" makes some pretty outrageous changes to your image.

Pretty funky, huh? The resulting image is a high contrast B&W master image (if you leave the "Desaturation Layer" on or flatten the image).

I was not happy with the dark shadows on the right side of the door and also on the door latch and to the lower left of the door. I lightened them with the dodge and burn technique I describe in my tutorial, "Get Your Dodging & Burning Under Control." I created a new layer, setting the type to "Overlay" and filing the layer with 50% gray.

I set the Paintbrush tool to the default colors of black and white, and I then painted white with a soft-edge brush set to 20% opacity in order to lighten the shadows. My favorite tools for dodging and burning are a Wacom Platinum Intuos II tablet and a Wacom Airbrush Pen stylus. You get precise control and very smooth transitions.

I did not completely even the lighting. I wanted a more "natural" appearance. Once the dodging and burning was finished, It could still stand a bit of extra sharpening before printing.Since this is the second round of sharpening, a small amount is needed. I applied USM 100, 1.0, 2.

If you still believe a simple trip to Edit|Mode|Grayscale can obtain similar results, compare the high contrast B&W image above with the grayscale mode conversion below. Equal sharpening was applied to both images. Less detail and less contrast is evident in the grayscale mode conversion. The differences are even more evident when the images are printed and compared.

Do you have some color images that could benefit from a conversion from color to B&W? You can create wonderful tonal transitions and juxtapositions in just a few minutes, once you learn the basics of converting to B&W with a pair of Hue/Saturation adjustment layers.

Enjoy!