Converting color to (grayscale) black and white (photoshop)

Converting color to (grayscale) black and white (photoshop)

Posted: 26 Apr 2009 07:45 PM PDT

Open the RGB image you want to convert to grayscale.

Go to "Image » Mode » Lab Color" to convert your image to Lab Color mode. There will be no visual difference between the RGB mode and Lab Color mode.

Now go to the Channels pallette. You will see 4 channels, we are only interested in the "Lightness" channel, so go ahead and click on it.

Your photo will now look grayscale like this:

Now go to "Image » Mode » Grayscale". Photoshop will ask you if you want to Discard other channels, click OK. The channels pallete will now contain only the gray channel.

Go to the Layers palette and duplicate the Background layer (press CTRL+J, or Command+J on Mac).

Now the next step will depend on how your photo look and how you want it to look. If it's too dark, then change the blend mode of the duplicate layer to "Screen", but if it's too light, then change the blending mode to "Multiply".

Multiply Blend Mode.

Screen Blend Mode

Now your image may appear too light or too dark after applying the different blend mode. Don't worry, you can fix this by adjusting the "Opacity" slide on the duplicate layer.

Now here is the result:

Before

After

You may wonder why all the fuss when you can simply convert it to grayscale by going to image » mode » grayscale. well, you can, but the above method gives you better results and more control. compare the image below with the above.

Simply going to image » mode » grayscale