What's some good black and white conversion techniques?

[April]

Hi everyone~

What's some good workflows for doing black and white conversions?

In the past I have just slid the desaturate slider all the way to the left but I have found my photos look flat.

Any special tips, tricks, actions or workflows?

Thank you!

[nathanbarlow]

I use actions by someone called PioneerWoman - some blogger. Really good actions, with a B+W one, sepia one and a ton of others

[Cory Varcoe]

I use the channel mixer in PS, great for adding contrast :D

[Rob__d]

Probably best to have taken the picture specifically for bw conversion.
Read up on the zone system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system

[talan]

I've got some tutorials on a Scott Kelby PS CS3 book but a bit too detailed to type out.

Here's some good free actions to try

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm#bw_conversion

[PureKiwi]

Channel mixer is my personal pref , i did have actions for everything possible back when i was designing but my crappy old maxtor hard drive burnt it self :(


Oh i hate the zone system lol

[archiescat]

Hi everyone~

What's some good workflows for doing black and white conversions?

In the past I have just slid the desaturate slider all the way to the left but I have found my photos look flat.

Any special tips, tricks, actions or workflows?

Thank you!

Hey, I use SilverFXPro by Nik as plugin to Aperture; it has all kinds of templates like Copper, Titanium etc and they all give a certain tint; there is much flexibility in there and I would highly recommend it. Here are some B & W pears from Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2573/3865869599_9573fd6955_b.jpg

[Paul Gummer]

Hi everyone~

What's some good workflows for doing black and white conversions?

In the past I have just slid the desaturate slider all the way to the left but I have found my photos look flat.

Any special tips, tricks, actions or workflows?

Thank you!

If you have CS3, the Black & White function as an adjustment layer is great...just like using coloured filters with B&W film cameras. You can darken or lighten each colour channel, ie blue sky can go dark grey or even black, etc. Great too, for local selections using adjustment layers. Also, Gradient Map as an adjustment layer on top of the Black & White layer - choose the black to white gradient from the tiny drop down arrow menu. Gradient Map gives a rich spread of tones and adds sparkle to your images. If it looks a bit too much, just lower the opacity. The beauty of the adjustment layers is that you can go back any time to adjust. Have tried all the other options on Photoshop but for most pictures this combo works best. However, there is an occasional image where good ol' desaturate just looks better so you have to experiment......