How Do I convert a layer to Grayscale?

[Keltic Ice Man]

I'm trying to remove a shadow cast by my flash (even with diffuser on) by using the advice

Here is a small tutorial - " how to remove shadow from picture "
there are other techniques but i think this one is most effective.

load picture in Photoshop.

duplicate the picture

change mode to grayscale (not original , only the copy)

apply gaussian blur with radius value 6.

now select original picture.

now click on -- select > load selection (channel - gray ,
select invert box)

now you can see the selection of shadow, here you can add or subtract area with lasso tool,

now click on edit > fill (content mode-- 50% gray, blending mode-- color dodge)

now set the opacity on the fill window as you desire, it may be 100% or 20 to 100 % ,

Now click OK and see the difference.

But cannot work out how to get the line in red to work, How do I get one level to go greyscale rather than the whole picture?

Any thoughts?

 

[Chappers]

OK Simple ( when you know how)

Duplicate the image by using the keyboard shortcut Control +J

This gives you a duplicate layer. Now highlight this new layer, then select Image>Mode> Greyscale

Done!

 

[moomike]

OK Simple ( when you know how)

Duplicate the image by using the keyboard shortcut Control +J

This gives you a duplicate layer. Now highlight this new layer, then select Image>Mode> Greyscale

Done!

This will turn your entire image to grayscale Chappers.

If you go to your history palette & click the "create new document from current state" button then this will give you a new document/image that you can then convert to grayscale without affecting your original image. As these two documents are linked you can still load the grayscale channel via the 'load selection" dialogue

 

[pxl8]

If you want to turn a single layer into greyscale use Adjustments > Desat....

 

[moomike]

If you want to turn a single layer into greyscale use Adjustments > Desat....

That would just remove colour information & turn the one layer to B&W rather than converting it to greyscale & giving the grey channel information required for the selection.

The person doing the tutorial is not very clear with his instructions tbh, where he says to "duplicate the picture" he means to duplicate the entire image, not just the image layer. Then convert the duplicate document to greyscale :bonk:

 

[pxl8]

I know but I was just offering a tip for converting a single layer to greyscale.

The tutorial itself doesn't need to use any greyscale conversion, you could copy and original layer to a mask and then use that for the Load Selection and do everything within a single document. I would also Edit > Fill onto a blank layer that has the colour dodge blend mode and then you can use the opacity slider to interactively tweak the result

 

[Chappers]

This will turn your entire image to grayscale Chappers.

If you go to your history palette & click the "create new document from current state" button then this will give you a new document/image that you can then convert to grayscale without affecting your original image. As these two documents are linked you can still load the grayscale channel via the 'load selection" dialogue

Yes unfortunately you're right. Shouldn't try to answer these questions late at night after sorting out pics from the days shoot.
If you go to image mode, and select B&W rather than greyscale, that converts the selected layer to monochrome.
Ignore the dialogue box that asks you to make cahnges to the image, click OK

 

[moomike]

I know but I was just offering a tip for converting a single layer to greyscale.

The tutorial itself doesn't need to use any greyscale conversion, you could copy and original layer to a mask and then use that for the Load Selection and do everything within a single document. I would also Edit > Fill onto a blank layer that has the colour dodge blend mode and then you can use the opacity slider to interactively tweak the result

No problem mate, I know you know what you're talking about but new people to the forum that aren't too sure of Photoshop may be reading these replies & get a bit lost after trying to follow the tutorial

 

[Charlie C]

duplicate original layer, then on the new layer (or the layer wanted) hit cntrl+shift+U