Just Embree

Playing with some black & white conversions on a Sunday morning.

I believe there's an art to good black & white conversions. If you simply use your photo editing software's "grayscale" or "convert to black and white" function, you're likely going to end up with a muddy gray image lacking in tonality, clarity, and contrast. Like this:

Here's what NOT to do:



In that photo, I did no other editing than selecting Photoshop's Image > Mode > Grayscale. It looks terrible.

There are much better ways to do it. Here's a few.

Super contrast, sharpened, bold b&w:



A somewhat softer version of above:



Faded with a slight brown tint. Sorta vintage:



In the last photo, I used the "Cappuccino" action from Paint the Moon's Coffee House set.

Do you have a favorite black and white Photoshop action, Lightroom preset, or technique? Spill 'em.