Color portraits to black-and-white: settings?
I know I can do this with Paintshop Pro (or Photoshop, of course), but what I would like to know is... what is a good recommended procedure/settings for doing this with portraits of people, as opposed to landscape images?
My main concern is that skin tones don't get washed out, but most suggestions I have found for converting to black and white tend to look great for "Ansel Adams" landscapes, but render inaccurate tones for indoor pictures of people. I want to know what are good baseline procedures and settings for most portraits, and then I can tinker from there.
Thanks to anyone who can help!
--Galisteo8
Then go along the top to :
Image > Adjustment > Desaturate
Create a new layer and call it bg. Drag it below the layer with the image. Select a golden yellow colour and with the paint bucket fill the layer called bg.
Then select the image and first:
Image > Adjust Brightness and contrast. Play with these as needed but leave the contrast just a bit high and the the brightness just a bit low.
Then from the layers palet drop the Opacity about 10 - 15 % or as needed.
Hope this helps.
Aplimedia
Your suggestion makes for a good sepia toned picture -- I'll have to keep that in mind. However, the publisher expects straight black and white. And I don't want to just use Desaturate or Grayscale, since those produce rather flat results. I know there's got to be some good "digital darkroom" tricks out there for realistic B/W portrait tonal quality...
BongSoo: "90-92% in your shadows, 2-4% in your highlights"
What do you mean?
btw, I also found some good guidance at Popular Photography magazine's website:
http://www.popphoto.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=1418
It includes the handy description: "Remember that pumping up a color channel works just like using that color filter over black-and-white film: that color gets lighter and whatever in your picture doesn’t contain that color gets darker." This matches what you're saying, LHerrou.
It also describes the probelm with Grayscale and Desaturate: "When you go to grayscale, you’re tossing out image data that can give you a lot of control. When you desaturate, colors of similar brightness turn similar shades of gray. That means you’re losing contrast and probably also losing detail that you want to keep."
LHerrou: I had previously found the Russell Brown piece at Adoobe, but it makes more sense now. :)
Did you get a chance to try the LAB - grayscale conversion? It might (or might not) be worth your time.
BongSoo
BongSoo
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