B&W work flow

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parkmoy

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David
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When converting colour pics to black and white how much PS adjustments would people make before the conversion and how much after?
 
very litte after, everything (except may be sharpening) is done on the colour image and then when all is done, I convert to B & W
 
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parkmoy said:
When converting colour pics to black and white how much PS adjustments would people make before the conversion and how much after?
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If you shoot Raw, any adjustments you make in-camera will not affect the Raw file, which will remain untouched, full colour.

So make as many adjustments as you like in camera (contrast, filter effects, whatever) and you will have a pretty good working idea of what you're getting on the LCD.

When you post process the Raw file, some processors will pick up on the camera pre-sets and apply them to the image you see as a starting point (on the assumption that they are somewhere close to what you want) but underneath you can do whatever you like to the Raw.
 
Thanks guys. So it seems the answer is do all the PP in colour, convert to B&W and everything is hunky dory?
 
I shoot RAW in colour all the time, and (to date) never change anything on the camera. Then if I fancy a picture in B&W I'll either knock down the sturation to 0, or 'convert to greyscale' under the colour adjustment tab.

With that done you can adjust and add contrast until your happy :)
 
PGD said:
I shoot RAW in colour all the time, and (to date) never change anything on the camera. Then if I fancy a picture in B&W I'll either knock down the sturation to 0, or 'convert to greyscale' under the colour adjustment tab.

With that done you can adjust and add contrast until your happy :)
Click to expand...
Neither of those are the best way to convert to B&W. You should be going to the "Black and White conversion" tool and adjusting the sliders of each colour to suit. You'll get much nicer conversions.

I'll maybe do a little extra contrast and levels adjustment after a B&W conversion but not always and not much.

I always sharpen after the conversion though.
 
Just really levels and noise reduction/grain adding and cropping in CS5 for me.

I shoot raw and 99% of my PP is done in ACR

Full work flow would be..

Open in ACR

Adjust white balance
Adjust exposure if needed
Adjust blacks
Adjust highlight recovery/fill light
Adjust contrast
Adjust clarity
Adjust vibrance
Adjust saturation

Next sharpening/noise reduction
Zoom to 100%
Radius set to 0.6
Adjust sharpening to taste holding down the alt key
Detail checked and adjusted again holding down alt key
zoom out a little (66%)
Adjust masking holding down alt key
Adjust luminance noise reduction
Adjust luminance contrast

Next Lens corrections
Find and apply settings for lens used

Finally zoom out to fit on screen and back to initial adjustments to make sure nothing needs sorting as sometimes the highlight recovery/fill light levels need further adjustment.

Open in CS5
duplicate layer for each process to be used, convert using the B&W conversion tool, sometimes creating several layers with different processes used, ie standard and an enriched blacks version, then use the fill controls on the layers to achieve the look I want,then noise reduction or add grain if I wish and finally levels, crop and save.
 
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Using PSE7, I do the basic contrast adjusting then convert to B&W using its Convert to Black & White tool (under Enhance) which now includes a Chanel Mixer for better conversions (Desaturate just drops the colour info and doesn't allow enough control over the "look" of the results IMO) and also has a few presets such as IR, Portrait etc to set a baseline for further adjustments using the colour sliders. Finally, a pass through the Unsharp Mask tool with settings dependent on final use and size.
 
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