My Black and White workflow

[jeffkohn]

I've had some people express interest in how I do my B/W conversions, so rather than reply to individual PM's I thought it might be useful to post a thread that might be of interest to others as well. I can't really give you a formula to follow because I don't have one. It's a pretty manual process for me, but maybe this will give you an idea of the approach I take for monochrome images.

I usually do the initial conversion with the B&W Adjustment layer in PS (sometimes I still use channel mixer or Convert to B&W Pro, but the new B&W adjustment layer is my 'default'). I don't try to get too much contrast at this point, because it can introduce noise if you push the color sliders too far. My goal is just to get a full tonal range with at least some contrast between elements that I want to separate. The only other step I do in Photoshop at this point is post-capture sharpening (since I have it turned off in the raw converter).

After that I save to TIF and work on the image in LightZone. This application takes a little getting used to, but it's very powerful for doing tonal manipulations, especially on monochrome images. The 'ZoneMapper' tool is useful for increasing or decreasing contrast in specific tonal ranges. The 'Relight' tool is useful for increasing contrast, especially if you use it in 'Soft Light' or 'Overlay' mode. Just be careful with that Detail slider as it's a pretty blunt tool. These tools are similar to adjustment layers in that they're non-destructive, so you can easily go back and change the settings, experiment, etc.

I'll usually do some targeted adjustments using ZoneMappers with selections, to bring out texture and detail in certain tonal ranges. I'll also use one or two Relights (one in softlight or overlay, the second in normal mode if needed) to increase the global contrast. The nice thing about this is that if you just used a duplicate layer set to 'overlay' in PS it will crush the shadows on most images (and maybe blow the highlights); but with Relight you can bring the shadows back up some, or tone down the highlights.

For some images it might only take a few adjustments, for others I might have have a dozen individual adjustments targeting specific image areas.

After that, I take the LightZone-edited image back into Photoshop for final tweaking. This might include a duplicate layer set to multiply mode and masked with a gradient to darken the sky a bit more. I might also add some vignetting, either with the Lens Correction filter or a feathered selection and levels adjustment layer. I'll also add one final dose of local contrast if needed, by using Unsharp Mask with a small amount and large radius. Something like amount=10, radius=30 works for some images, others might benefit from taking the radius as high as 120.

After that I add a bit of toning and I'm done.

If you don't have LightZone there are things you can do in PS to work on the tonality of an image. Duplicate layers set to Soft Light, Overlay, and Multiply can be very useful. You'll probably want to use masks and/or opacity slider to limit the effect though. Of course the good ol' Curves tool can work well for some adjustments (again, best to use as adjustment layer with masking if needed). And for dodging/burning, you can create a new layer filled with neutral gray and set to hardlight or softlight; brushing with white brush at low opacity will dodge, brushing with black brush will burn.

Since my workflow is a pretty manual process, and varies signficantly from image to image it wouldn't be practical to try to show a step-by-step example of editing. There are just too many individual adjustments made on each image. What I can do is show you a before/after example.

Here's the color version. It was pretty hazy in the distance, and I knew this wouldn't really work as a color image; but I shot any way hoping it would have potential as a monochrome image.



Here's the intial B/W conversion. It looks pretty awful, I was trying to give myself the raw material to do further adjustments, rather than getting a final result immediately. The important thing was to keep the shadows fairly open and make sure detail was preserved in the tree.



And here's the final version after editing in LightZone and Photoshop. I used selective edits to really push the contrast on the the more distant, hazy portions of the scene without totally destroying the shadows. I also increased the tonal separation of near rock, and added some vignetting. I still wish I'd had a better sky, but this is better than I could have done in color (making such large tonal adjustments to a color image would likely screw up the color).



Hope this is helpful for some folks. I realize it's not an easy-to-follow set of steps, but I don't think there really is a set of steps you can follow since the adjustments are going to be image-specific. If you have any specific questions about something I've mentioned feel free to ask.

[my3peas]

aaaaaah!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!! I love love love your black and whites so much!

thanks!!

[Abel]

thanks a ton for the write up jeff

[idnurse41]

Really great information and fantastic work! Truly inspiring! Thanks so much:)

[adirty1]

do you have Lightzone Pro or Basic?
I have been doing some reading on LZ and was wondering if it's better to get the full. Seems that the basic does just everything I need but I am just not sure.

[barP]

great write up from someone that knows their stuff!

last fall i decided to spend 30 days doing nothing but black and white. i searched the net over for recipes and subjected myself to "the fred" on a daily basis. after my pilgrimage, i concluded that jeff is right....the bw convert tool in cs3 is outstanding. i also bought alien skin and use it for some things, but regardless, i also agree that "hand made" is best. black and white is about craftsmanship, and there are no actions that accomplish that easily.

when i don't want to futz with layers, lightroom can also be made to do excellent conversions, for what that's worth.

wp.

[studiocygnet]

I'd never heard of LightZone before, so I just downloaded a 30 day trial to check it out. Did you learn it from their videos, or just experimenting with it?

Are you starting your processing from scans of negatives, raw, or jpeg?

[jeffkohn]

Thanks everybody, glad you find it useful. A few answers to questions:

do you have Lightzone Pro or Basic?
I have been doing some reading on LZ and was wondering if it's better to get the full. Seems that the basic does just everything I need but I am just not sure.

I have basic, which is already pretty expensive and does everything I need. They've lowered their prices recently, but even so IMHO the Pro version is overpriced consdering it just adds batching features. For the type of editing I use LZ for Basic has me covered.

I should point out LZ is touted as a full-featured graphics editing package for photographers. I only use the ZoneMapper and Relight tools, but it also has collor correction, sharping, RAW conversion, B&W conversion, and a bunch of other stuff some may find useful if they don't already have Photoshop. LZ isn't perfect, it's written in Java and as a result can be pretty slow especially handling larger files with lots of adjustments. But it makes tonal edits so much easier than in Photoshop.

when i don't want to futz with layers, lightroom can also be made to do excellent conversions, for what that's worth.

Yes, the B/W conversion in Lightroom is essentially the same as the one in ACR/Photoshop. Some users may find the combo of Lightroom and LightZone a good match, and not have a need for Photoshop.

I'd never heard of LightZone before, so I just downloaded a 30 day trial to check it out. Did you learn it from their videos, or just experimenting with it?

I looked at some of their training videos, and read some of the forum posts. I also played around. I believe they've expanded their training section in recent months. The Zone Mapper and selection tools took a little practice to get the hang of, but you can get really nice results with a little practice.

Are you starting your processing from scans of negatives, raw, or jpeg?

I shoot RAW, do the initial conversion in ACR/Photoshop, and then save as a 16-bit TIFF for editing in LZ.

[LoungeLizard]

Thank you! Guess I won't be getting a PM! LOL

Like I said before, your landscape stuff is awesome.

[AKPhotography]

TFS (with examples too)!! Your end result is amazing!!

[Steelsun]

Nice - thanks for the workflow lesson. It'll help!

[luis_relampago]

Jeff,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to share with us your much appreciated knowledge.

God Bless!

[AllenAyres]

Thank you Jeff, some good stuff to dig into

[studiocygnet]

Hi Jeff, got a question about your workflow. I got Lightzone, and I've been using it on the 30 day trial. However, when I tried your described workflow, and I converted a raw image to b&w in Photoshop CS3, then saved to tif, and try to open in Lightzone, I can't. I can see the image in the Lightzone preview window, but when I try to edit it, I get a window with a message that says something about the "XLM document structures must start and end within the same entity"- whatever that means. I sent a question to Lightzone support, and they say they'll get back to me within a couple business days, but I was wondering if you had run into this. I'm using a mac with Tiger, and "saving as". I tried all the different methods in the TIF save dialog too.

[jeffkohn]

I've never seen that while running on the PC. Do you have the same problem with other files types such as JPG, or is it just TIFF? Make sure you're saving a flattened TIFF with no layers, also try leaving the compression option at 'None' (16-bit files don't compress anyway, it just slows down the save time).

You might get a faster reply by posting in the LZ user forum if others have seen this issue. Last resort would be a reinstall I guess. I had some problems at one point where the settings and/or cache got corrupt and I had to reinstall, but I haven't had any issues since and don't recall ever seeing any error messages talking about XML. Sorry I couldn't be more help.