We all like to look at bright, vibrant, colorful pictures from time to time and the modern-day digital camera does a most stunning job of creating life-like images that are packed with living color. Colored images may be the popular choice, but black & white images are also gaining popularity. Whether it is due to its classic look giving it more significance in a contemporary age or due to the fact that black & white can be stunning in its own sense and a nice change from color! Whatever the reason maybe, going mono can have really great benefits and it has definitely grown on me, the best part is... I have a bit more control over the type off mono effect I want!
Having a colored portrait that has uneven tones, washed out color and basically colored elements that are fighting against each other, benefits the portrait none. But after converting to black and white, making it a bit more grittier by using the contrast slider and tweaking some of the channels, the whole image is brought together. Now, the different elements that fought with each other are working in harmony giving the image that sharpness of detail it was lacking before.
Converting your images to Black & White may seem like a walk in the park when using Photoshop or Elements. In all fairness it can be. By choosing a simple route like Image - Mode - Grayscale. However, if your anything like me and prefer to have more control over your images than you'd be more inclined to using the advanced options.
Elements 8 offers 'Select a style' such as infrared, newspaper, portraits, scenic landscape, urban/snapshots and vivid landscapes that shifts the channel sliders to a predetermined position. Each preset gives the image a specific effect. From there you can move the red, green and blue slider to make further adjustments. For a more punchy image try experimenting with the contrast slider. The presets are quick and easy to use but you will have more control over the type of mono effect that you want by adjusting and experimenting with the channels yourself.
In Photoshop you have six sliders to play with. They are... red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magneta. You can access this by going to Image - Adjustments - Black & White.
The channels that have the most effect on your image depend on the colors in your image. The red channel is known to have an effect on skin tones, if there is a lot of green in your image then the green channel will greatly influence the outcome. Finding the kind of mono outcome that works best for you requires a bit of tweaking and this can only be achieved by experimenting with the channel sliders. Keep in mind not to go to crazy with the sliders, for you do not want to spoil the quality of your image and if you do and you can't find your way back to the desired settings... it's as simple as clicking on reset to put the sliders back in their original places and try again.
Not all images deserve the mono seal-of-approval and some are just better off left in color. However, whether you have a good eye for detail or not there's no harm in experimenting with your pic's. If you don't like the mono effect just click cancel.
So if your thinking about going mono, head on over to Convert To Black & White where you can gain some insight into how you want your mono images to look!
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