Converting to B&W

Converting a photo to black & white is something that can be done dozens of different ways--yet there is no right answer. However, I will say that I think many of the methods can leave the end result looking a little flat.

I'll get to my (current) favorite last, but here are some of the other basic ways. And first, here is the original photo without any post processing:



For all of these examples, I did adjust the levels and brightness/contrast the same amounts (mainly to make the sky more interesting and also to darken the buildings in the background) before the final conversion.

GRAYSCALE

Here, PhotoShop Elements is discarding the color information and converting everything to a shade of gray. This, in my opinion, is the flatest end result.



"CONVERT TO B&W"

Using Elements' converions wizard for "Urban/Snaphots" this is the end result. It's similar to using "Filtered B&W" in Picasa and it creates certain colors differently. There are a number of different options such as "Portrait" and "Scenic Landscape."



DE-SATURATION

The nice thing about this one is that you can add it as an adjustment layer so you can turn it on and off without having to actually flatten the image (like you have to when converting to grayscale). Since saturation is about boosting colors, de-stauration is the opposite and moving the slider all the way to the left will result in a B&W image.



GRADIENT MAP

This is my current favorite method. This is also an adjustment layer that can be turned on and off, and what it does essentially, is it takes the darkest color in the photo and makes it black. The lightest color is white, and everything in between gets mapped to a shade of gray. Teh reason I like this method the best is that it seems to produce the richest results and keeps the midtones from becoming flat in the conversion process.

Completely subjective and up to the viewer to decide what they like best.