High contrast B&W from Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers

[engstrom]

I found an interesting technique for getting high contrast B&W pictures in Scott Kelby's PS CS2 book so I thought I would give it a try on a picture I took a few months ago. The basic technique is pretty simple - open the picture, press D to select black as the foreground color and white as the background, create a gradient map adjustment layer, create a channel mixer adjustment layer with -8 constant and 75% red. Adjust the green and blue to taste. Voila.

Here's what I came up with. This might not be the best picture to use this technique on but I do like what it does to the clouds and the sky.

[johnastovall]

Nice, I have the book. I'll have try that now that I can print real B&W.

[engstrom]

Very quick and easy to do - I'm starting to find more and more pictures I want to try this processing on.

[boomerd35]

Thanks for the tip. I'll try it.

Troy T.

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Wow, that looks great! Nice technique.

[engstrom]

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention - make sure and check the "Monochrome" box on the channel mixer dialog - if not you get color casts when you start adjusting the sliders.

[Cheat213]

it's is a great resource book! However I think the NAPA membership is also worth it.