Learn how to apply an old time hand tint effect to a photo in Lightroom. You will see how to convert the image to black and white and then how to color it using the Adjustment Brush. This technique can be applied to a range of images and the effect works well when you want a hand tinted look for your photo.
Labels: Adjustment brush, B&W, black and white, color, hand tint, Lightroom, lightroom technique, photo editing, vintage effect
Learn how to craft a custom black and white image in Photoshop using the Black and White adjustment layer and a curves adjustment. The process also includes adding a simple vignette effect.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley.
Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can create a custom black and white conversion for your images in Photoshop.
Before we get started with this process let’s have a look and see what it is that we’re aiming at. Here is just a standard conversion to black and white of an image and I just used the desaturated command to get this image. And here is a more crafted version.
Here I’ve been able to make choices about exactly how my black and white image looks. And I like this one a whole lot better and I’m going to show you how you can create this affect yourself. And what we do is use a black and white adjustment layer to do it. So first of all I’m going to take all these layers and just trash them.
And let’s get started with this image which of course was originally a color image. Now one thing I did do to this image is I cropped the beam across the top of the image out of the way because I didn’t think that helped it at all. And now instead of doing a desaturation which you might do by choosing Image > Adjustments > Desaturate, which gives you this sort of flat conversion into black and white, we’re just going to undo that and we’re going to choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black and White.
Now this allows us to craft a black and white and what you get is a series of sliders. And you get a sort of standard black and white adjustment. But with these sliders you can determine how individual colors in the image are converted. Now right now I want you to look at this Konica Minolta sign here and it was originally blue.
Now you can see that if I take the blue slider towards the left it becomes very dark. If I take it towards the right we actually lose that sign completely. And this is the way that we craft our black and white image. All we need to do is to bring the sliders to where we want them to be to get the effect that we want on the image.
Now for me I wanted my greens to be a big lighter. So I’m going to take my greens to the lighter side of the slider and I’m testing each slider individually to see which gives me the effect that I’m looking for. And I’m looking for a bit of a moody image here.
So everything is going to be towards the darks for this image. But I might kick the occasional color up to light to that I get a little bit of variety in the image. And I’m just going to craft that until I get what I want and close the dialog.
Now the beauty of using an adjustment layer by choosing Layer > New Adjustment Layer is that this is now editable so I can double click on this adjustment layer at any time and I can redo the adjustment. I can tailor it again to my specific needs.
Having done this I wanted to really give this image a kick so I also added a couple of adjustments to it and these were curves adjustments. I chose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and I did this twice because I wanted to use standard curves adjustment. So from the presets the first thing I did was I chose a strong contrast because I really, really wanted a contrast here.
But then I realized that that was over darkening it so I added another adjustment layer and this time I went for a lightening curves adjustment layer. So I just went straight back into Curves and this time chose Lighter because that gave me a lighter but still very strong contrast image. And I finished off with a vignette.
Now with the vignette I added a new layer so Layer > New Layer. And then I chose the Rectangular Marquee tool here on this brand new layer and I just selected inside the image, sort of around I guess about half an inch inside the image. Then with that selection in place I chose Select > Inverse so that now I have this very edge of the image selected.
And you can see that I made a really poor job of this so let’s go back and I missed the top of the image. Let’s try that again, select Inverse. Now it looks pretty even all the way around. I have a sort of brown selected here but it could be black. It could be anything. I’m going to press Alt Backspace or Option Delete on the Mac just to fill the selection with that color and then I’m going to deselect the selection with Select > Deselect.
I’m going to blend it in using a multiply blend mode because the multiply blend mode darkens everything. And you can see the darkening effect around the edge of the image when I turn it on and off. Of course it’s not only way too much but it’s also a really hard edge. So with this layer selected I’m going to choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
Gaussian Blur is my sort of go to blur because what it allows you to do is to really heavily blur the edges. Now I’m down at the very bottom of the image so that we can see the edge that we’ve got. This is it with a zero radius blur but as soon as I start increasing the blur you can see that it softens out nicely. So I’m just going to make it nice and soft and then bring down the opacity of it until I get what I want. So this is the original image and this is our new crafted black and white version.
And I think that for me is a lot more interesting than this particular version that I got by just choosing to desaturate the image. If you like this sort of dark, grungy sort of version or if you want to be able to craft your black and white images with a bit more control than just a one-step click select option then this is the tool you need to do it. Use the black and white adjustment layer and craft your own images.
I’m Helen Bradley.
Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial. Look out on this YouTube channel for more of my video tutorials.
And subscribe so that you’ll be advised when new tutorials are launched and also visit my website at projectwoman.com where you’ll find more tips, trick and tutorials on Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Illustrator and a whole lot more.
Labels: adjustment layer, b & w, B&W, black and white, contrast, convert, craft a black and white, curves adjustment, desaturate, Vignette
Categories:photoshop
Split Toning applies one color to the highlights and another to the shadows in an image.
Good color choices when applying a split tone are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel such as magenta and green, blue and yellow, or red and cyan – although you can choose any combination you like.
To apply the split tone effect, drag on the Hue slider or click the color picker to choose a color to use for the Highlights and then choose something else to use for the Shadows.
Adjust the Saturation of the colors as desired.
Balance allows you to fine tune how the colors are applied to the image – drag to the left to adjust the balance towards the shadow color and drag to the right to add more of the highlight color.
Labels: adjust, b & w, B&W, balance, Black, Black & White, Black & White Mix, black and white, color, color a black and white image, Develop, Develop Module, highlights, Hue, Lightroom, Photoshop, saturation, shadow, slider, split, split tone, splittone, tip, trick, Tutorial, white
In the Black & White mix dialog is a Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT).
You can use this TAT to craft your own black and white image.
To do this, select the TAT and drag up or down on an area of the image to lighten or darken the color under the TAT. This is often easier than dragging on the color sliders to adjust your black and white image.
The TAT is handy for crafting a black and white image to look the way you want it to look.
Labels: b & w, B&W, Black, Black & White, Black & White Mix, black and white, color sliders, Develop, Develop Module, dialog, Lightroom, Mix, Photoshop, Targerted Adjustment Tool, TAT, tip, trick, Tutorial, white
You can convert any image into black and white by pressing the letter V or select B&W. However, you can also craft your own black and white image to get a better result than you get with the default settings if you drag on the color sliders in the Black & White Mix panel.
Each slider controls one of the underlying colors in the image. Drag to the right to lighten a color in the black and white or to the left to darken it.
Using the sliders, you can get a crafted black and white image that looks the way you want it to look.
Sliders for which there is not corresponding color in the underlying image will have no effect or little effect when you drag on them.
Labels: b & w, B&W, Black, Black & White, Black & White Mix, black and white, color, color sliders, craft, desire, Develop, Develop Module, effect, Lightroom, Photoshop, Reset Black & White Mix, sliders, tip, trick, Tutorial, underlying, white
The simplest way to convert an image to black and white is to press the letter V. This is a toggle so press it once to turn the image into black and white and again to make it a color image.
You can also convert an image to black and white by clicking the B&W option in the HSL/Color/B&W panel.
If Auto is enable click it to get a black and white conversion tailored to the needs of the image.
And, if the sliders are already all at different values you can reset them all to zero by holding Alt (Option on the Mac) and then click the ‘Reset black and white mix” option. Choose which is the best starting point for your conversion and progress from there.
If Auto is enabled, click it to get a black and white mix appropriate to the image.
Labels: Alt, Auto, B&W, Black, Black & White, black and white, color, convert, Develop, Develop Module, HSL, Lightroom, option, Photoshop, Reset Black & White Mix, slider, tip, trick, Tutorial, V, white
You can learn a lot about black and white photography using your favourite photo editing program as most have tools for converting from colour to black and white.
Avoid the adjustments that do the work for you such as by choosing Image > Mode > Grayscale as you won’t be able to make any creative changes to the image.
Instead, in Photoshop Elements, choose Enhance > Convert to Black and White and experiment with the sliders and options. There are different options down the left of the screen to select from and you can then adjust the red, green and blue sliders to fine tune the result.
In Photoshop, choose Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White and adjust the sliders for the colors – this lets you control how the colours are converted to either black or white. In this way you can separate colors like Green and Red for example making them significantly different to what they would look if you do a regular conversion.
For more information on making a detailed colour to black and white conversion in Photoshop Elements visit this blog post: An Adjustable Black and White conversion http://projectwoman.com/2009/08/an-adjustable-black-and-white-conversion.html
In Lightroom and in Adobe Camera Raw you can convert to black and white and then adjust the color sliders to create a good looking black and white image.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, convert, desaturate, digital SLR, dslr, film, grayscale, greyscale, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
Traditionally, when shooting with black and white film, photographers use filters to enhance the colours in the image.
Using red, yellow or orange filters when shooting landscapes or shots where the sky has interesting detail can help darken the blues in the sky giving them more punch than they would otherwise have.
You can purchase coloured filters that screw onto the lens of a digital SLR or which can be placed over the lens of a point-and-shoot camera using an adaptor ring.
The images captured with these filters will show different conversion of colours to black and white than you would see if you were to shoot in regular black and white without the filter.
The image at the top shows two different renderings of a single image the first with a red filter and the second with a blue filter.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, filters, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
The same rules for composing an image in colour apply when you are shooting in black and white. Make sure the subject of the photo is placed in an interesting position in the shot, make sure the camera is square to the horizon and that the subject is in focus.
When you are photographing in black and white pay attention to how the colours are converted.
Some colour pairs like green and red which contrast so strongly in colour photos convert to the same shade of grey in a black and white image. Depending on what you are shooting this can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
In the image above the solid black of the nuns’ habits ensures that the image will be a strong one and placing the subjects off center makes the image more dynamic.
If you are unsure how the image will convert, check the camera’s viewfinder or on a digital SLR take a reference shot and look at the result in the LCD screen to evaluate the composition and to check that what you are seeing in the scene will render well in black and white.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, composition, digital SLR, dslr, film, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
When the light is lacklustre because the weather is overcast it is often a bad time to shoot in colour because the colours are bleak and uninteresting.
These are times when black and white works particularly well because, by removing the colour problems, you can focus on the interesting things in the scene.
If the scene is monochromatic anyway and even flat but shooting it in black and white you can reinforce the desolation and age of the scene.
However, that’s not to say that a sunny day or sunrise and sunset is not also a good time to capture photos in black and white – when the sunlight is strong, the contrast between areas of light and shadow become very obvious and black and white is a wonderful way to capture this.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, full sun, Helen Bradley, light, monochrome, sunrise, sunset
Categories:photography
