“Turning a color image into black and white”
- Begin by opening Adobe Photoshop CS3. Using the File>Open command, open the photograph you would like to convert to black and white.
- Note: DO NOT use Image>Mode>Grayscale to convert your image to black and white. By doing this, you will reduce the quality of your image by 2/3.
- Now, navigate to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer.
- The New Layer dialog box will appear. Give your layer a name and select “Ok.”
- Now, in the “Channel Mixer” dialog box, check the box marked “Monochrome.” You will notice your image turns to black and white without losing any data.
- Next, you can select from one of Adobe’s presets or manually adjust the Red, Green, and Blue channels. The sum of the % values for each channel should equal 100.
- You can check and un-check the “Preview” box to see before and after versions of your image.
- After you have adjusted the channels to your liking, you can save your preset using the small button to the right of the Preset drop down menu.
- If you are working on a lab/public computer, it is always a good idea to save your preset to your flash drive so that you won’t lose it.
- Once you have finished, click “Ok” You will notice a new adjustment layer above your original “background” layer which applies the effect you just specified on the layer below it. You can turn off the adjustment by clicking on the eye icon next to the layer in the layer stack.
- Now, save your image as a .psd file (this will preserve editing capabilities.
- If you wish to save your image for the web, follow Photoshop Tutorial 1.6
Download This Tutorial: DTFA_photoshop_cs3_1-1
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