Lessons

The Art of Faking Black and White

There is more to the artistic flair of black and white photography than merely grayscaling your photos. It is a world of grain, contrast & lighting. If you love the gritty look and are looking to show more emotion and dramatics with a hint of sexiness, but have found there’s more that meets the eye in achieving this style, no fret. Where your digital camera settings may be showing sub par, we’ve got the cheap tricks in Photoshop that can compensate the difference for a professional look and new edge. Choosing to convert to black and white should be an intentional effort and not a solution. Architecture and portraits make great subjects, but when it comes down to it, some photos are just monotonous and black and white isn’t an instant answer.

Step 1: Starting with Color
*Note: Make sure your settings are in RGB, (not Grayscale or CMYK). To check this go to: Image > Mode > RGB

1. Desaturate
Image > Adjust > Desaturate

The benefit of Desaturate vs. working in Grayscale is you are still able to edit in RGB format.

Step 2: Adjust Selective Color
Image > Adjust > Selective Color

By using this method, you can specifically brighten or darken colors independently, as to not get a “photo copy” style look as with the Brightness/Contrast controls, (shown above). From the drop down menu in Selective Color select from White, Neutrals or Black and move the slider (triangle) to the right or left to increase or decrease intensity.

Step 3: Adding Grain

1. Duplicate your image: Layer > Duplicate Layer

2. Add Grain: Filter > Artistic > Film Grain

The Film Grain filter achieves the film look most closely as it works with the high & low lights of your photo, where the Noise and Grain filter create more a blanket effect on the entire image.

NOTE: Depending on the coloring/lighting of images, the default settings of the Film Grain filter can loose too much detail and/or contrast. To lower contrast move the “intensity” slider (triangle) in the Film Grain Filter window to the left to decrease and achieve a more even-subtle effect.

3. Adjust layer’s opacityto about 50% in the Layers toolbar. (Or to desired opacity)

4. Adjust layer style to Overlay

The goal in adding grain is to give a “raw” look, but by lowering the opacity you do not overpower the image with the effect. This ends the editing process. Now look at your image at 100% and if quality meets the eye – Upload.