B&W Conversion

[Jusselin]

What do you use for your B&W conversions? I have heard about Alien Skin but am not very familiar with it....i was wondering what you guys/gals use.

[Flea77]

Film :-)

Seriously though, the one or two times I did not use film for B&W images I did it all in photoshop with no plugins. With enough playing, it look acceptable.

Allan

[Jusselin]

i just use photoshop too but do not like my results...was hoping to hear some other options.

[JohnT]

Lightroom 3, which has several presets as a starting point. I seem to get very acceptable results.

[texxter]

You may want to try some free B&W conversion actions out there. For example these:

http://www.atncentral.com/zip/DanielDiazB_W.zip

http://www.atncentral.com/zip/gormanbw.zip

http://www.atncentral.com/zip/TLR_BW_Conversion.zip

[Jusselin]

downloading those were easy Paco, installing them is tricky for me....any input on "how too"

[billbunton]

Sometimes PS, sometimes LR/ACR, sometimes Capture One, sometimes Silver Efex Pro, and I've used PhotoKit in the past also. If I know I want B&W I usually do it during raw conversion; if I'm ambivalent I'll leave it color and then convert in PS, using either PS itself or a plugin.

[Phototx]

I use the Raw Conversion from Bridge to convert and the Targeted Adjustment tool during the conversion to enhance the specific areas that I want to increase or decrease contrast.

Glen
www.phototx.net

[lsusouthpaw33]

Thanks for this. Very helpful!

[d2creative]

Silver Efex Pro
Lightroom/Aperture plugin or Photoshop plugin.

Comes with some decent presets and you can create your own.
Tons of different film types, stylizing, control points and color filters.

[texxter]

Originally Posted by Jusselin

downloading those were easy Paco, installing them is tricky for me....any input on "how too"

Sorry, I just saw this question. The action files should go into one of the Photoshop installation folders, you can look around to find other pre-installed actions. Then go to the Actions window, click on the menu icon and select Load Action.

[lucian]

Virtual Photographer also has a B&W conversion plus others - sepia, brown tone, etc. This is a free plugin. I've used the sepia and brown tone for some of my living history images.

Welcome to optikVerve Labs - Home of virtualPhotographer

[Buddha]

Paintshop Photo Pro II has a built in Film Effect which can convert an image to B&W film, something like Tri-x. After doing that, you can fine tune the effect by clicking on Color Balance and setting it on Blue, although YMMV. This leaves greyscale looking positively grey.
If the attachment came through, you can see an example which has had very little done to it after conversion.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by d2creative

Silver Efex Pro
Lightroom/Aperture plugin or Photoshop plugin.

Comes with some decent presets and you can create your own.
Tons of different film types, stylizing, control points and color filters.

Yeah, this one's on my list. A lot of people give it high marks, and I used the trial version for a while, which I was very pleased with.

[Sherman79]

Originally Posted by Buddha

Paintshop Photo Pro II has a built in Film Effect which can convert an image to B&W film, something like Tri-x. After doing that, you can fine tune the effect by clicking on Color Balance and setting it on Blue, although YMMV. This leaves greyscale looking positively grey.
If the attachment came through, you can see an example which has had very little done to it after conversion.

love this man, thanks