Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Elements

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Elements

I posted this as a blog about a year ago and was asked if I could submit it as a tutorial. Here you go...

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. Tools like Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 do a fantastic job of converting to black and white, but not everyone can or wants to invest in another piece of software, particularly after spending money on Photoshop or Elements. So the question is, how do I convert my vibrant color image to a B&W photo that I'm happy with? Here's a way that I was taught that works very effectively.

(Note: I'm using Photoshop Elements 9 in the photos below since it should provide a basic starting point for most folks here. These techniques should be easily adaptable to newer versions of Elements or to Photoshop.)

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.

Starting Image + 100% Desaturated Image (click on an image to enlarge further):

SnapShot_130131_071827.jpg

SnapShot_130131_071853.jpg

This is because once color has multiple components, Hue Saturation and Luminance, and by removing the Saturation component you can run into collisions and near collisions with the remaining components. Without getting into great detail, here is an example of what appear to be some pretty start differences in colors, and then those same colors desaturated. With the larger blocks you see some colors merge, and with the two greens you can see that the two greens swap in terms of which you considered lighter or darker. This is because of how Hue and Luminance interact.

Desaturation.jpg

While there is no easy way to play with the luminance of a desaturated image, my brother, who has a couple decades experience shooting digital as a pro and teaches classes in Photoshop, offered me this tip in how I can make my B&W conversions pop without spending money on conversion programs.

As previously, take your original image and add a Hue/Saturation layer, but this time set the Blending Mode to "Color" instead of the default of "Normal"...

SnapShot_130131_071933.jpg

Now add a second Hue/Saturation layer, this time leaving the Mode set to Normal and desaturate as before...

SnapShot_130131_072028.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072042.jpg

Now, switch back to the first Hue/Saturation layer. Making adjustments here has the effect of applying all sorts of colored filters, but to an exponential level, simply by moving the Hue adjustment bar. By simply moving the Hue to the far right you can see how the bright yellow float in the middle of the net, which disappeared in the original conversion, now pops out again as it did in the color image...

SnapShot_130131_072115.jpg

As I move around the Hue slider you can see how different objects will pop and fade depending on the position of the slider. Notice the differences in the Yellow Float, Blue Water and Orange Bucket at the different Hue values...


SnapShot_130131_072145.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072154.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072205.jpg


I now have what I consider a far superior conversion to the original I got with plain desaturation. But this wouldn't be a worthy blog post if I didn't give you my best Ron Popiel and tell you, "Wait, there's more!!" We've just been playing with the hue at the Master Color level. What if I drill down to the individual colors and play with them one at a time? In the layer window I go to the drop down and start moving through the colors, hanging the Blues and Cyans to bring out the detail in the water, tweaking the reds to bring out the bucket on the dock. And remember, you can play with both the Hue and Saturation levels now and maintain your B&W image...


SnapShot_130131_072219.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072235.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072301.jpg

SnapShot_130131_072334.jpg


Now I have an image that more accurately reflects what my brain sees when it looked at the original color image and imagined it in Black and White (compare to the simple desaturation)...

BeforeDuringAfter.jpg

Oh, and because I know you're curious, what would this Black & White image look like in color? Just go back to the top layer and add back your Saturation...

SnapShot_130131_072354.jpg

Not exactly what I'd call a pure conversion.

Giving credit where credit is due, my eternal thanks to my brother, Tony Kurdzuk, for the lesson. Tony is a full time news photographer at the Star Ledger, as well as a digital photography instructor with experience that goes back to the first batch of Kodak backed cameras in the late 80's/early 90's. He's a pretty darn good photographer (NJ Press Photographer of the Year three times, East Coast Press Photographer of the year once). Feel free to look up his stuff at NJ.com
 
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Krs_2007

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Great info, do you know if something similar can be done in Lightroom
 

Mfrankfort

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Thanks. It's frustrating that there are 300 different ways to do 1 thing in photoshop, lol. Black and white, selecting.. healing.. all have like 20 different ways to do the same thing.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Great info, do you know if something similar can be done in Lightroom

Kevin,

Funny you should ask, because after reviewing and reposting this I thought I should also do one for Lightoom only conversions since I've since learned a great way to do it there. It was something I'd never tried when I did the original blog, and I'm not sure at what level this may have existed prior to LR5, but it's equally effective.

If you change the Treatment type in the Basic section of the Develop module from Color to Black & White then Lightroom will automatically convert the image to Black & White for you. This will almost always be different from the simple desaturation, but may or may not be "better". For example:

Untouched Color Image

B&WConversion-Before (1 of 1).jpg


Lightroom Desaturation

B&WConversion-Desaturate (1 of 1).jpg


Lightroom B&W Treatment

B&WConversion-B&WTreatment (1 of 1).jpg




The cool thing is, the conversion is something other than a simple desaturation (in this case you can see specifically that the yellow float is more pronounced in the simple desaturation than in the conversion). What it does is that it analyzes the current image and then attempts to set Hue sliders in a way that it believes best represents the original color image. In the Adjustment section of the Develop module you now get a set of "Black & White Mix" sliders that allow you to adjust each of the basic hues individually, with the initial settings set as the program sees fit.

Here you can see how it arranges the sliders for this photo (note: the Basic module is reflecting the fact that this image still has LR4 processing information)...

Screen Shot 2014-01-10 at 11.29.58 AM.jpg


...and just to prove the point here are the sliders from a different photo...

Screen Shot 2014-01-10 at 11.31.07 AM.jpg


As you can see, curves are similar, but specific values are different.

The movement of each of the sliders is effectively what I showed when you changed the hue of each of the various color curves in the first adjustment layer above. What Lightroom doesn't offer is the Master level hue slider, which isn't necessarily a drawback. The cool thing about doing it this way in Lightroom, which isn't something I knew when I first wrote this a year ago, is that LR will maintain the B&W Treatment setting information independently from the color version (but only in the Adjustment section). This means that you can effectively store both color and B&W versions of the same photo within Lightroom without one set of edits impacting the other. If you decide that you need to also tweak some of the basic settings, or any of the others, for your B&W version then simply do the B&W conversion on a Virtual Copy. This way you have 2 versions of the same photo built on the same basic RAW file.

Truth be told, I much prefer the Lightroom method to the one above, now that I've learned of it and played with it, because it's just as flexible, and does not require you to create a new image file - everything is stored in the catalog as an adjustment to the original RAW file. That said, I still do all my B&W's in Silver Efex Pro 2 as the rest of the controls lend so much more impact.

As I've said before, if you had to take away all my darkroom tools but one, just leave me with Lightroom.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

I should note with the conversion above how much alike the LR and PSE conversions were, as opposed to the simple desaturation, which isn't actually half bad in this case. The thing about simple desaturation in LR is that the sliders that you are left with in the HSL tab of the section no longer have any effect.
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Thanks Jake, my plan is to work on more BW this year. I do have a bunch of presets but I always like to know what they are doing, this will help.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Thank you for rewriting your tutorial, Jake! It is very detailed as to how the process is accomplished. Your efforts are greatly appreciated as I'm sure reposting the photos was a royal pain in the arse! :)
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Thank you for rewriting your tutorial, Jake! It is very detailed as to how the process is accomplished. Your efforts are greatly appreciated as I'm sure reposting the photos was a royal pain in the arse! :)

You're welcome. Once Marcel get clued me in to how to reuse attachments it wasn't awful.
 

Sharin

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

This is an excellent tutorial; I read it on your blog a couple of days ago. I need to keep the info close at hand since I'm not too familiar with the Channels tab. Thanks for sharing it.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

This is an excellent tutorial; I read it on your blog a couple of days ago. I need to keep the info close at hand since I'm not too familiar with the Channels tab. Thanks for sharing it.

I am not well versed in the Channels tab either, so if you find something in there about it then it should make for some interesting reading!! LOL

Just noticed that there is a "channels" tag on the thread, which isn't of my doing. What little I know of channels can be dangerous, but I do know that the original post has far less to do with channels than color manipulation for the purposes of B&W conversion. The Lightroom additions may qualify somewhat since they have more to do with playing with the balance of specific hues within the converted image and not so much the shifting of the colors, but it's still not channel work.

Not that knowing how to use the channel information wouldn't help you in conversion work, but I would just caution anyone seeing the tag and thinking that this has something to do learning channels it does not.
 

Sharin

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Oh my gosh Jake, that Channels tag was totally my doing. I am so sorry. It's removed now. :p I guess that's what happens when I read several tutorials at the same time and get the info mixed up.

I went back and reread this again. Like I said, great info. Definitely a keeper.
Thanks again.
 

Allan LJ

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Great tutorial. Tried it out last night and the effect is excellent although I have always been a bit mystified about hue itself, but that's a different matter.

I Will definitely be using this technique from now on.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

If you're into the science of color, or want to try and understand it a bit better, here's a pretty good explanation of how Hue, Saturation and Value (their term for what LR calls "Luminance") work together, borrowed from deep within NC State's website (likely from a class syllabus).

Color Principles - Hue, Saturation, and Value

It's way more technical than you would ever need, and unless you're a math geek like me you can skip about the first 1/2 until it gets to "The Hue, Saturation and Value (HSV) Color Model", though some of the stuff before that helps explain it. I believe this is taken froma class dealing with reading MRI's, but some of the color tools will be very familiar to PS users.


For the non-geeks among us, the short definition - Hue is Color. When you you change Hue you are shifting the 0 point of your color spectrum around a 360 degree wheel that starts and ends with Red. When you drill down to a specific color and change its Hue value, you are only shifting the spectrum of its light, while leaving the others alone.
 
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Allan LJ

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Many thanks for the link and for explaining what HUE is in plain terms as well, that's excellent.

As you mention a lot of the colour tools look similar to PS, so it all makes a lot more sense now - but please don't quiz me on all the technical details ;)
 

Allan LJ

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

B&W is still quite new to me, but I think the main argument is that the camera's conversion is not as good as PS and other software and the pictures will still need some post processing anyway as they look a bit 'flat' otherwise.

However, you could still shoot B&W in Raw mode to get a better feel of the B&W as you go along and still process it in PS as either colour or B&W afterwards.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

I know it sounds stupid, but why not just shoot in black and white?

Because you cannot shoot B&W in RAW mode. Sure, you'll get a B&W JPEG preview, and LR or ViewNX will apply the camera preset, but you're still starting with an image in, as they used to say, "full technicolor".

There are times when I shoot specifically with Black & White in mind. Other times an image I'd intended to produce in color just doesn't have the feel I want. I love color, but the hodge-podge of hues in many shots takes away from the subject - a reason why most street photography is black and white. And even when you shoot with black and white in mind, the colors you shoot can play nasty tricks on you if you can't imagine them desaturated, as the color palate image in the tutorial show.

Regardless of whether or not you shoot intentionally in B&W or not, having the color information available to you in the RAW file allows you to make color-specific adjustments that will enhance the B&W image - something you could only do with single color (or graduated bi-color) filters in pure B&W. I always shoot with the intention of minimizing my post-processing efforts, so when something doesn't come out as planned, it's nice to know how to most quickly get it to where you want it.
 

sonicbuffalo_RIP

Senior Member
Re: Better B&W Conversion Using Multiple Hue/Saturation Layers in Photoshop & Element

Thanks Jake...I never tried to shoot B & W in RAW, but I completely understand what you're saying and it is something I've learned and will have to store in my brain....I've learned one thing.....listen to Jake (he knows what he's talking about)!
 
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