Convert Colour to Black and White

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 The Lemming 11 Feb 2022

Went to my Niece's wedding at the weekend and would like to try converting some images to Black and White.

What ways can I go about this without being lazy and just dropping Saturation?

Post edited at 18:09
OP The Lemming 11 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

I liked this quick episode

youtube.com/watch?v=2IFwGJ-Wy7M&

 Ger_the_gog 11 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

Have you tried Silver Efex? An older version is available for free as part of the following bundle.

https://nikcollection.dxo.com/download/

Edit: apologies, it appears the old version is no longer linked. You can trial the latest version for 30 days though. 

Post edited at 18:19
 ianstevens 11 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

Change the colour profile, there’s a B+W option (Lightroom).

 Marek 11 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

A slightly more nuanced approach is to use a 'Chanel Mixer' (Photoshop term, but I'm sure other tools have something similar) which allows you to control the contributions of red, green and blue in the final images. A bit like having colour filters and B/W film.

Silver Efex seems to be popular - although I've never used it in anger. It's hard to find the free version, but I did manage eventually (last year, I was more interested in some other of the Nik tools). It's also rather clunky to use since it was designed as a plugin, but with a crude exe wrapper - the only way to open a file is to drag-and-drop it onto the exe file.

In reply to The Lemming:

Surely the simplest way is just to print the picture using a grey tone or monotone setting rather than the colour setting, (or save the same to a .pdf)?

 Sean Kelly 11 Feb 2022
In reply to Ger_the_gog:

> Have you tried Silver Efex? An older version is available for free as part of the following bundle.

> Edit: apologies, it appears the old version is no longer linked. You can trial the latest version for 30 days though. 

Echo this. A wonderful piece of software. Often just one click sorts out the image. Try high or low structure filters. You can even select film stock effect.

OP The Lemming 11 Feb 2022
In reply to John Stainforth:

> Surely the simplest way is just to print the picture using a grey tone or monotone setting rather than the colour setting, (or save the same to a .pdf)?

You'd think.

But converting to B&W and then messing around with the various colour channels brings out different tones. This subtly would be lost with a straight to monotone.

Post edited at 21:53
OP The Lemming 11 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

Here's my attempt at doing five. Would appreciate a critique.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/

 Solaris 12 Feb 2022
In reply to The Lemming:

I find Capture One's B&W presets a good starting point for getting good images out of my RAF files - lots of colour and other adjustments available, plus exposure, contrast, tone, etc.


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