“Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away…” (Paul Simon, 1973)
The great Paul Simon, expressed what almost all Photoshop users felt, when they tried to convert color photos to black and white.
Well, it doesn’t have to look worse. It can look great, you just need to pay some attention to the way you convert your color photos into black and white.
The basic action any program uses when converting a colored photo to black and white, is desaturate colors. When this is done, colors can no longer exist and you are left only with the luminosity of the photo aka – black and white (actually it’s greyscale because you get up to 256 shades of grey).
The next photo was simply desaturated.
The original photo:
Lets see what happened. The overall look of the image is, in soft words, grey, dull and flat. I didn’t want to use harder words…
The reason for this kind of result, is that desaturating a photo doesn’t recognize relations between colors. It is a simple automatic action that has no perception of color, only the basic math of getting rid of colors.
In this particular photo, the Yellow Cab has to be be lighter, the sky should be darker, City Hall (in the back of the image) should not fade into the sky, the traffic light should have some more shades and details and the buildings shouldn’t be so flat…
If you want to achieve that, you must use “color filters”. You have to tell the program which color should “take control” and be dominant in your image.
If you use PSKiss Mono Red filter for example, the red channel is lightened so Cyan (and some blue) objects, such as sky and water, will be emphasized, while red and yellow will be lightened:
If we put both images together the differences stand out:
(Move your mouse over the image and see the differences)
How to use black and white color filters?
Actually, it is simple but a little tricky… You choose the opposite color to the one you want to emphasize.
Here is a reminder of complementary colors on the color wheel:
Red > Cyan
Green > Magenta
Blue > Yellow
So, if you want blue sky to be darker in the black and white image, you should choose Red filter, as you can clearly see in the NYC photo right above.
If you want yellow elements to be dark, use Blue filter. Note that this will make blue sky very bright:
Notice the darkness of all yellow areas and the absence of sky detail as reflected in the water,
after applying PSKiss Mono Blue:
What about the other options of PSKiss Mono?
The first option on the list is Mono Pan, which is Max’s tribute to the legendary Ilford Pan B&W film.
It creates mild contrast and very “calm” result.
The original photo:
After applying PSKiss Mono Pan:
The second option, Mono Chrome, is more contrasty. Shadows are darker, highlights are lighter and the overall look of the black and white image, is far more dramatic.
The Original photo:
After applying PSKiss Mono Chrome:
The next six options are color filters, that you are supposed to know by now…
After the color filters, are 2 very straight forward luminosity filters: Light and Dark. Unlike to the color filters, choose the intuitive options to what you want. Choose Light for a fair black and white version (best for dark or red-orange photos) or Dark for a deep shadowed version (best for very bright or blue photos)…
The original photo:
After applying PSKiss Mono Light:
After applying PSKiss Mono Dark:
Last but not least is Infrared, which is Max’s tribute to Infrared films (He had some terrible film nostalgia times lately. He is still looking for that Nikon F1…). Check this option whenever you want an interesting, but not perfectly distinguished b&w version of your photo (or whenever you become creative at once…).
The original photo:
After applying PSKiss Mono Infrared (quite extreme, but beautiful, isn’t it?):
Don’t forget that PS Kiss Mono, as all PS Kiss tools, creates a separate layer leaving your original image untouched and unharmed.
Even after you clicked “Done”, you don’t need to start all over again any time you want to try a different setup.
Just go to the History panel. You will find all the setups you’ve tried in the dialog box.
PS Kiss filters, remember everything for you so you can be concentrated with what’s really important – your work!
If you like PS Kiss Mono press HERE to buy it now.
You might want to check out PS Kiss xPro Efecto and PS Kiss Clarté which are complementary processes.
