Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element
I've always found that the basic level of B&W conversion available in Lightroom and Photoshop to be adequate at best, simply desaturating the image and leaving you with an image that is a little flat and one-dimensional requiring you to then tweak it to the best of your abilities.
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The most basic black & white conversion method is simply to take the color image and completely remove any saturation. As you can see, details that are very clear in the color image, like the net and line, are all but lost in the conversion, and playing with brightness and contrast will do little to bring them out.
"most basic might mean "simplest quickie kludge" (I think that was your point), but I would argue if the definition of "most basic" was intended as "normal and usual".
Without exceptional reasons why not, the correct tool (color to grayscale conversion) is the menu called Grayscale. It does exactly the right thing.
It uses the television NTSC specifications that say grayscale tone (Luminosity) is: Red x 0.3 + Green x 0.59 + Blue x 0.11.
Every pixel is computed this way. This is how B&W television was created. It is how B&W film works.
This makes the difference so that blue sky and red lipstick brightness come out in grayscale about the way the human eye distinguishes them. And the way that B&W film will reproduce them.
There is very much science in the simple Grayscale menu. It is not the simple way, it is instead the one correct complex scientific way.
Desaturate just dumps the color. Does not weight green greater than red, and red greater than blue (not like our eyes see it).
Or Channel Mixer offers much choice in how to modify the colors before grayscale, which is then creative editing, far from a normal "correct" conversion.
Grayscale menu does Luminosity = Red x 0.3 + Green x 0.59 + Blue x 0.11 (studied for years in B&W television). The three coefficients add to 1.0.
Here's a picture from my wifes little compact camera. Chosen here in a quick search to find something with all three colors.
Original color
Desaturate (Photoshop CS6)
Grayscale menu (Photoshop CS6)
Just looking doesn't show a lot, so next here is an animated gif of the last two (2 second intervals): Click it.
Not a great example, but for example, in the color version, the red roofs and blue water seem about the same brightness. Not so in the Desaturate version, not the way our eyes see color.
Frankly, I prefer the color verson.
There are creative ways to make modifications to edit the color reproduction. If you want to be creative, have at it, its your picture.
But the Grayscale menu is the ONE CORRECT WAY to do it. That is what it is for.
