Many of the most famous photographers in the world have used mostly black and white. Think of Ansel Adams' landscapes, Henri Cartier-Bresson's street photography, Irving Penn's portraits, Robert Capa's war documentaries and so on.

That "all those guys" use black and white is not in itself a very good reason for you to do it. But it is hardly a coincidence that they chose black and white even when colour was available.
By removing elements that do not add content to the photo, it becomes better and the message or story in the photo will become more prominent. The colours represent an element, and can be removed to enhance the real content of a photo. Just like you can choose to crop out or clone out a wastebasket or something unwanted in the background.

When we shoot digital photos, we always shoot colour. Even if you have some setting on the camera called "black and white" or some monotone setting, our camera still records colors in red, green and blue first. This is because of how the light sensors are built. So when we want to have a black and white photo we (or the camera) must do a conversion.

The Conversion

Before we can begin the interesting and most creative part of the work on black and white photos, we have to transform the colour values into gray scale values.

There are many methods in PhotoShop we can use to convert from colour to black and white. This may seem confusing, but it is actually quite good that we have a choice of methods, so we can select one that gives the best result for a spesific situation. The figure below shows how different methods give different results on a fully saturated rainbow-like gradient.

None of the methods are right or wrong in all situations. The maths behind the methods are just different.

I rarely, if ever, take photos of rainbows with the intent of turning them into black and white. The subjects I most like to work with in black and white are portraits, landscapes and artistic nudes.

This is a portrait of my father in law. I shot it in the Spessart forest in northern Bavaria, Germany. We were walking along a path and I saw that the lighting conditions were waiting for us in a small clearing we were approaching. As we entered the clearing I asked him if he could stand there for a while and look really stern. He managed to hold the look for about 1/200th of a second before he started laughing. Below you can see the comparison between some of the methods of conversion on this portrait. Click on the image to switch between the conversion comparisons.



We see the the contrasts on the right and the left sides are different for gradient map and black/white or straight desaturation. Gradient map gives a little more punch. The mode-conversions Grayscale and Lab Lightness-channel stand out from the rest. I guess that different methods fit different pictures. Good contrast works nice with wrinkled men, but one should perhaps opt for a less contrasty method when handling portraits of women. Use the right tool for the job, don't force the job to fit the tool.

I find that an adjustment layer with gradient map mode works well for my workflow and my types of photos. I like the extra contrast. If you don't, then the desaturation will perhaps give you a better result for your images.

Toning

Some of the conversion methods will let you add a tone to your photo as part of the conversion. Gradient map lets you do this by presenting a gradient that you have complete control over. The below sequence of screen-snippets show how you create an adjustment layer, with gradient map mode in PhotoShop CS3.





When you are done, the layer will appear in the layer window like this:

If you wish to use another mode like Curves, then you choose that in step one (to the right in the figure). Also, you can add several colors in a gradient map. Just repet steps 3-5 a few times to add more tones and move them around a bit to see what really happens. To delete a tone, just drag it downwards until it disappears from the gradient display.

Masks

The power of adjustments as layers becomes apparent when you master the masks. A mask controls which parts of the photo will be affected by the adjustment layer. The mask is easily changed by drawing on it with any brush, gradient or even text. White, in the mask, means that the effect of the adjustment layer is 100%, black is 0% effect, and any gray in between, is something in between 0% and 100%. To get more in depth info on layers and masks check out this book about layers in PhotoShop.


Look at the following example. Here we have an adjustment layer with a pure black/white gradient map, but with two different masks. One well defined circle, and one diffuse circle.

In the left figure we clearly see how the color suddenly disappears as the mask turns white. To the right, there is a transition from full saturation to no saturation as the diffuse mask goes from black to white via shades of gray. This diffuseness illustrates how much control you have over the effect of an adjustment layer. When I work in the masks with brushes, I mostly use a very soft brush ( 0% hardness), and also I turn the opacity of the brush down to 5-10%. This means that it takes several brushstrokes to make the effect of the layer visible. This technique works extra well if you have some sort of drawing pad with a stylus where you can use pressure to control the size of the brush.

Into the darkroom

With full control of the adjustment layer using masks, you can really take full control over light and darkness in the photos. This is the part that takes us closest to working with exposure during printing in the traditional black and white darkroom.

Here are a couple of examples of how I work with black and white. The photoshop files for both of these, and the conversion-comparison portrait above can be downloaded from here: http://gfx.andreasoverland.no/gfx/bw_psb.zip (11Mb)

The following photo was shot on a pretty gray dull and cold day.

The first step in my black and white workflow is the conversion and the toning. As mentioned, I like to use the gradient map method because I can add toning, with more than one tone if needed, at the same time as the conversion is done.

So here, I have added a simple gradient map in an adjustment layer, with a little sepia toning to add some warmth.

In the following steps, I keep adding adjustment layers with curves, to add highlights or shadows as I see fit for this particular photo.

The background is a bit dark, so I'll make it a little brighter.

There are still a couple of elements in the background that are too dark, so I add a another curves adjustment layer, and draw a mask that confines the effect of the curves to a very limited area.

Now I want some more contrast on the models body. New adjustment layer with curves.

And towards the end, I want a little shine in the skin of the model, on just a few spots. Once again, a masked adjustment layer with curves will do the trick.



It may be easier to see the changes when the photos are not moving (click on the photo):

Two books that have given me inspiration in the field of Artistic Nude photography are Lighting for Nude Photography and Nudes: Developing Style in Creative Photography.

Here is another example with a simple landscape photo, with some potentially dramatic clouds.

First step is to do the conversion like in the last photo, with an adjustment layer with gradient map and a little sepia toning.


Again I use curves in different layers, and the drawing on the maskes to confine the effects for each of the curves.

Make the grass a bit brighter.


Darken the clouds.


The trees are a bit too dark now, let's lighten them up a bit.


Some parts of the sky can be made a little more dramatic by darkening them.


Again, for better comparison of the steps, click the photo to step through:

Summed up

When I use this workflow for my black and white photos, I get a firm control over the result. It means that when I am out shooting, I know what I can do in the "darkroom" and thus I can plan my motives and exposures according to that. It's important to note that I'm not thinking "well, I'll be able to fix it in PhotoShop".

I hope you may be able to use these techniques to have more fun with your photography.