As I explained in my previous Convert to Black and White tutorial, using the channel mixer is the technique that offers the most control. But what if your software doesn’t have a channel mixer? This method is effective and works in Adobe Elements, Photoshop and will work in other software that supports the use of adjustment layers.

This fellow has an interesting face and he was kind enough to let me photograph him at a recent reenactment event I attended.

Saxon

The weather that day was dull, extremely overcast and the light was very flat as you can see but that’s OK because it made the contrast very low in this image. Ideal for converting to black and white. This method shows how to achieve effective black and white conversions without the use of the channel mixer.

The first step is to create two new hue/saturation adjustment layers. In Photoshop this is done by going to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. You need to create two layers for this technique as shown in the screen shot below.

Adjustment Layers

 

Next, you will need to double click on the top layer to access the settings dialogue box and set the saturation to -100 or whatever is equivalent to this in your package.

Set Saturation to -100

Top Adjustment Layer Settings

 

Now highlight the second adjustment layer and set the blend mode to Colour. Then double click the layer to access the settings in a dialogue box just as you did for the first adjustment layer.

Adjustment Layer 2

Bottom Adjustment Layer Settings

 

 

 

 

This is where the fun begins. Make sure that you have the preview box ticked so you can see the effect of any changes you make in real time. You can change the effect globally on all colours in the image by simply moving the Hue slider up and down . However, if you want more control, you can click on the drop down box next to ‘Edit’ to reveal specific colour ranges to affect.

Colour ranges

 

Using a combination of ‘Master’ and individual colour ranges, you can fine tune the effect to exactly how you want it. Although this isn’t as straight forward and intuitive as the channel mixer, it can be just as effective with a bit of practice and experimentation. Using our start image as an example, because this image is a portrait and the subjects skin colour is predominantly made up from reds and yellows, these seem like good starting points but experimentation is the key here.

The final image conversion here was achieved with the following settings.

Edit: Master/Hue +25
Edit: Reds/Hue +20
Saturation +20 (Be careful with this setting as too high a value will cause the image to degrade badly)

Which was sufficient to bring out the texture in his face. As a final tweak I bumped up the contrast a little using the Levels adjustment. Image>Adjustments>Levels. make sure you have the actual image layer selected for this last part.

And here it is. Pretty Good eh!

Final Image