Black and White

Have you ever tried to make an image black and white? Did you use the desaturate method. Here's the picture that I am using for this tutorial -

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Now if i go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate and take away the color from the photo... I will be left with a black and white picture.

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But it doesn't look as good as it could. It seems dull and lacks depth. Here's a better way of making images black and white -

1. Open up the picture you want to use.

2. In the Layers palette go to the button circled in red in the picture below and then go to channel mixer in the drop down menu.

Put in settings something like the ones shown below (feel free to experiment).

Now I am left with a much nicer black and white picture. You could even add a unsharpen mask (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharpen Mask). Here's my end result -

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Much better that the desaturated image right?

Well anyway it's not the most complex tut ever but it really does make a difference. Also adding a brightness and contract adjustment layer helps depending on how the result looks when your done. Just experiment with the sliders etc.