Black and White conversion

Hey, Blog-ees!


I'd like to touch upon the art of converting color files to either black and white or monochrome.


Remember that a pleasing black and white image will take a lot more than just converting to grayscale.   Grayscale is called "grayscale" for a reason.  Black and white images that are flat and gray hold little appeal to the viewer.  They scream, "Next!"...and that certainly is not what we wish to hear or see.


Let's try a few conversions.  We'll start with a picture of a baby...very basic, easy lighting, great fleshtones:

The little guy's name is Eli, and we'll try a few different conversions.  We'll mostly be converting to monochrome, but we'll try something extra, too.
Here is what happens when you simply convert to grayscale:

Notice the flat, lifeless look to the image.  The depth is now gone  The photo truly is grayscale, as there are no real "whites" and no real "blacks"...just varying shades of grayness.  "Next!!"

Okay, now I imported the original, color image into Lightroom and tried a few presets, along with "tweaking" the numbers to give me the desired result.  First, I tried a preset of "Black and White, High Contrast":

I had to move the exposure down to -29, blacks up to 12, and contrast to +71.  But look at how much more depth the photo has.  Look how his little eyes actually sparkle and catch the viewer's attention.  Same photograph, same lighting, different post-production technique.


Here's another done in Sepia with the same idea:

This is done a little lower key than the black and white image.  Sepia emulates another era in photographic history where photographs had a more subdued look to them.  I wanted to preserve the depth, but not completely white-out the highlights like we did in the high-key black and white image earlier.  The only drawback to this sepia image of the boy is the loss of any real lightness to his eyes.  This is a blue eyed baby, but the technique makes his eyes look brown.  But for this image, it works.  And if anyone suggests using selective color to leave just his eyes blue, I'll thrash you with my cable release.


One last technique you can use that's not technically black and white is called "aged photo", and it's a Lightroom preset.  It gives the illusion of an old time sepia-ish image without actually converting 100% to monochrome.  See here:

A little of the original flesh tone and lip tone are preserved (as is just a hint of his eye color) while pulling out most of the color.  This image has been desaturated 71%, and was processed at a lower contrast and a recovery of about +85.  This preset is great to employ when you like the color, but don't want the color to be so distracting as to detract from the emotion.


We took one photograph of a baby and created several moods.  As the artist, it's up to you to guide the viewer's mind and tell the story, not just with your images, but with the feelings, moods, and emotions that must emanate from them.


J.