Tips for Creating Stunning Black and White Photographs

Converting photos to black and white can produce stunning results, but editing one to do so takes more than clicking one button to remove color. Careful editing may result in flat, dull images if your colour photo grayscale is converted too soon – to ensure its conversion looks amazing follow these tips and you’ll have peace of mind that the converted images look gorgeous!

Convert Colour Photographs to Black & White

There are two primary ways of converting your convert image to black and white: either convert them directly or process for colour before making adjustments and then convert.

 

Convert to Black & White First, Then Adjust Convert photos directly to black and white with Lightroom! To do this, navigate to its “Develop” module’s Basic section, and click on “Black and White Treatment.” This instantly converts your photo into black and white while simultaneously eliminating options to adjust vibrance or saturation that don’t apply for black-and-white images.

 

Once your photo has been converted to black and white, you can make adjustments for exposure, contrast, clarity, tone curve and tone value. By doing this first, it makes it possible to visually observe how each adjustment affects the end result.

 

Here is how each slider will impact your black and white photo:

 

Exposure: Adjust the overall brightness of the photo first by adjusting its exposure. However, if starting with a processed colour image this step may not be necessary.

 

Contrast: convert to black and white image tend to benefit from having increased contrast when being processed compared to when processing colour photos.

 

Shadows: With this slider, you can independently alter the darkest tones in your photo to make its shadows either lighter or darker.

 

Highlights: Similar to Shadows, this slider allows you to independently change only the lightest tones in your photo – making them lighter or darker as desired. Use it for making highlights lighter or darker.

 

Clarity: To add sharpness and texture, adjust this slider by increasing midtones in your photo. Doing this may cause darker images; in order to compensate for this effect, readjust Exposure or Shadows sliders accordingly.

 

White Balance: Once you have adjusted all other sliders, move to the Temp or Tint sliders to see their impact on your photo. These adjust the colour balance in your picture, altering its overall tones. Experiment with them and see if any improve it further.

 

Additionally, the “Black & White Mix” tool, located directly beneath “Tone Curve”, gives you further control of tones in your photo. Here, you have complete access to lighten or darken certain colours within it; for instance, by moving the blue slider left, this can darken sky (or any other blue areas in your image) further, providing greater separation among tones within your image.

 

Process in Color First and Convert to Black & White

This less common way of converting image to black and white may still work well, however. Process your photo in exactly the same manner that would be done if leaving it as colored images before following these steps to convert to monochrome.

 

This method may not produce as reliable results, but it can save time if you intend on processing the image with colour as well.

 

Tips for Achieve Great Black & White Photos

Now that you understand how to convert photos to black and white, here are a few suggestions to ensure the best results possible.

 

Photos With Lots of Texture

Black and white photographs that feature textures, high contrast areas, or moody atmosphere make excellent black and white photographs. As color is removed from a photograph, something like texture or strong contrast must add interest and prevent it from looking flat.

 

Whites Must be White and Blacks Black

When photographing black and white images, be mindful that each has solid black and solid white points in it. Converting an image directly to greyscale can result in flat images.

 

Don’t Ignore Greys

While black and white photos should include both black and white elements, great black-and-white images utilize various grey shades between them to add texture and create depth in their pictures. This way you add depth by including texture.

 

Focus on Your Composition

Without the distraction of color, composition is even more critical, as your eye will naturally gravitate to lines and shapes in photos. One powerful compositional element is leading lines – any elements that form lines which recede towards the horizon line – as these will pull your eyes into the frame. To create strong composition in black-and-white photography, take note of Rule of Thirds, negative space, and golden ratio compositional techniques to craft eye-catching photos.

 

At first, editing black and white photo converter may take some getting used to if you are used to working in colour. But with these tips in place, you should have an excellent platform from which to start experimenting until you find what works for you!