Part 5 - 3 :- Converting a colour image to black and white.

In this part, I am using some specific tools to convert an image to black and white.

Technique #3 - Using Lab Colour

This is quite straightforward and is a good method for retaining skin tones and also preserving shadow and highlight detail. You may need to do some further adjustments to get the best effect though.

The original image.

Step 1 - Open the Channels window

Once you have opened the Channels Window, you will see a box with RGB, Red, Green and Blue channels on your screen.

Step 2 - Change the image to Lab Color

Once changed to Lab Color, note how the Channels information has also changed. Now, we have Lab, Lightness and a, b channels.

Step 3 - Delete Lab channel 'b'.

Simply right click on the channel and select 'Delete Channel'

Step 4 - Delete Lab channel 'Alpha 2'

Note : Our Lab channels have changed name. This is normal as we had already deleted one of the channels.

Simply right click on the channel and select 'Delete Channel'

That's it.

If you now go to Part 1 or Part 2 you can use the techniques described there to get some better contrast and level to the image - If you so desire.

For my final image, I have done a very small amount of Levels adjustment and cropped it to a vertical format. I have also selected Image/Mode/Grayscale so that I can save the image as a Jpeg.

Pretty much that is it. I hope you find it beneficial.

Remember, do NOT save over your original file. Use 'Save As'.

There are hundreds of ways to post process. This is just one technique and I find it works well for many images.

Try it out and have fun. Be sure to try different values in the steps as this will provide you with a wealth of 'self-learned' views of how the values affect the outcome.

For other black and white conversion techniques Click Here

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