John Shaw Nature & Digital Photography Workshops Click here for locations and dates
				Mexico's Colonial Heartland March 17–24, 2007
				Horses and Icons of the Wild West August 26–September 1, 2007
				Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya September 7–21, 2007
				Australia Wildlife November 1–20, 2007

Most nature photographers work in color; after all, we see the world in color, not black and white. But there are certainly times when we want an image in black and white. Back in another life I taught Humanities and I remember a Wallace Stevens poem entitled “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Well, there may or may not be thirteen ways of getting a black and white image, but there are certainly quite a few. I’ll discuss several here, from very simple to more complex (and ranging from “not-so-hot” to “very good” results). I won’t mention commercial packages—Photoshop plug-ins—that offer B&W conversion, but will just go over a few ways to do it directly in Photoshop.

First of all, you could just record the image in B&W, whether you’re shooting film or digital. With the former it’s easy: just use B&W film if you‘re positive—no pun intended here—that you don‘t want or don’t need color. To be honest, it’s been ages since I actually shot a roll of B&W. I’ve always worked in color and the only time I needed B&W was very early in my career when textbooks still used B&W images. My solution was to copy my slides, photographing them using a slide duplicator, using Panatomic X film, overexposing by about two stops and under-developing using a very dilute compensating developer, Rodinal at a 1:100 dilution. Wow, I haven’t done that for close to thirty years, and am I ever glad! There are much easier ways.

Most digital cameras offer a B&W setting which you could use. However, I would not recommend doing this. After all, you can always convert a color image to B&W, but doing the reverse is basically impossible unless you like to hand color images. You might as well shoot color to start with just to have it.

So what are some ways of converting color images to B&W? Here’s a color photo taken with a Nikon D100 camera. Let’s go through some Photoshop conversion options (I’m using Photoshop CS but these steps will work with most versions).

1. Convert to B&W using the Grayscale option. This is found in Image > Mode > Grayscale:

That’s it. A couple of clicks and you’re finished. Here’s what you get:

Although this is quick and dirty, it’s not the best way of getting a B&W image since you have a choice of only one result. Methods that give you more control are always better.

2. Convert to B&W by changing to LAB color and using the Lightness channel.

Here’s another method that produces only one version of the converted image. Change the color space to LAB by choosing Image > Mode > LAB Color. Now open the Channels palette and select the Lightness channel.

Next, just as in the previous example, do Image > Mode > Grayscale to remove the color channels.

3. Convert to B&W by selecting one of the Channels from the Channels palette.

Make sure that you have not checked “Color Channels in Color” in the Displays and Cursors option box under Photoshop’s Preferences. In my opinion there’s no reason ever to have this box checked. Let’s start with the same image and look at the Channels palette. Here’s the palette showing that all the channels are active (that is, you’re seeing the composite color image).

Click on each individual channel until you find one you like. For example, here are the three channels:

There’s an obvious difference between the three channels. You can now refine these images somewhat by running a Levels or Curves adjustment on them, but you have to do this directly on the image, not as an Adjustment Layer.

4. Convert to B&W by removing all the color in a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to your color image by doing Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation, or clicking on the “Add Adjustment Layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and selecting Hue/Saturation from the drop-down list.

In the resulting menu box, pull the Saturation slider all the way to the left to remove all color.

At this point you can continue to edit the image using Adjustment Layers as you would normally.

5. Convert to B&W by using Channel Mixer.

With the original image open do Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer or just click the “Add Adjustment Layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Either way you want to select “Channel Mixer” from the choices available. The Channel Mixer option box opens. Now click on the Monochrome check box at the bottom.

The default will be 100% of the Red channel, 0% of the Green and Blue. Now pull the sliders any way you want, just keeping the total percentage close to 100%. For example, you could have Red at 80%, Green at -22%, Blue at 42%, or any other combination that you like. You don’t have to make the numbers add up precisely to 100%; just keep it close.

There is no right or wrong…just move the sliders until you like the results. At this point you can continue editing the image by adding Adjustment Layers, as you would with any image.

6. Convert to B&W by using two Hue/Saturation adjustment layers and different Blending Modes.

Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to your color image. Don’t make any changes, just click “OK.” Add a second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, pull the Saturation slider all the way to the left to remove any color, but don’t make any other changes. Click “OK.” Now go back to the first Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (the lower one on the Layers palette), activate it, and change the blending mode to “Color.”

Open this adjustment layer and watch what happens when you move the Hue slider. In essence you are applying different colored filters to a monochrome image. You can also adjust the Saturation slider to fine-tune the results.

You can see that,like most procedures in Photoshop, there is more than one way to arrive at your destination. My suggestion: just play with the some images to find what you like best. Have fun!

Announcement: John's newest book, John Shaw's Photoshop Field Guide, is now available. This is an eBook on CD, with step-by-step instructions on making prints using Photoshop and Epson printers. It will be available only from John's website, www.johnshawphoto.com.