Black and whites too greyscale...

[lockedillusions]

What am I doing wrong?I have been told some of my black and white images look too greyscale.How do I avoid this?How do I photoshop an image from color to Black and white without it looking this way?

He is an image of mine.

[Daniel Bates]

I'm not sure what they mean by "too greyscale" - greyscale, monochromatic, and black & white are all commonly used terms for the same thing (the absence of color).

If they mean "too grey", that is easily solved by setting the black point and white point in Photoshop. This increases the contrast and gives the image more "pop". You can do this any number of ways, from the contrast slider to Levels or Curves.

[lockedillusions]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

I'm not sure what they mean by "too greyscale" - greyscale, monochromatic, and black & white are all commonly used terms for the same thing (the absence of color).

If they mean "too grey", that is easily solved by setting the black point and white point in Photoshop. This increases the contrast and gives the image more "pop". You can do this any number of ways, from the contrast slider to Levels or Curves.

Yes I wasnt quite sure what exactly they meant.But thought I would come here and see if anyone here did.

[venchka]

Neither of your examples are black and white. Both have color in them.

My feelings about digital B&W is that there is too much black and white and not enough gray. I like lots of grays. Long tonal scale. A zillion shades of gray between black and white. The digital B&W lack of long gray tonal scale is either: too much Photoshop "pop" or lack of dynamic range with digital. End of rant.

My guess is that anyone who says a photo is too gray really means that they are addicted to "POP" meaning high contrast and lack of dynamic range.

Good luck.

[cooltouch]

I find myself agreeing with Wayne. Over the past week or so, I've been scanning to .tif files several hundred old b&w negs. True, they didn't start life as digital images, but once scanned, they're nothing but 1's and 0's, same as any other digital image. Once scanned, almost all have required some post processing before I was satisfied with their "look." Images that were just varying shades of gray with low contrast were visually boring to me, even if the subject itself was interesting. Extending the tonal range of a "flat" image is not always appropriate, but when I felt it was called for, during the PP, I was able to bring the darkest shadows to black -- or near black -- and the brightest areas to white, or nearly so, while maintaining a good range of the middle shades. This improved the images (to me, at least) because it broadened the overall tonal range -- which I believe is what Wayne is getting at.

I used only a few tools to accomplish this, mostly histogram adjustments, followed by a bit of judicious brightness and contrast tweaks. If you're not comfortable yet with the histogram function, you should spend some time with it. It's probably the most flexible tool you have at your disposal for controlling the overall dynamic range of an image.

Having written all the above, however, I believe you have displayed a good tonal range in each of the images you've posted. If these two images are being criticized as "too grayscale", then I really agree with Wayne. Not only do these folks appear not to understand the meaning of the term "grayscale" but they appear to be addicted to "pop", which I don't feel is particularly appropriate for either of those images.

[venchka]

I get my pop in cans at Brookshires.

[lockedillusions]

Yes the pop that is exactly it.I noticed there images where always brighter and more dramatic then mine.

[venchka]

Any photo needs contrast and interest. Try not to overdo it. All the POP in the world won't make up for poor composition, lighting, boring, etc.

[crackhead]

In traditional B&W film photography, "pop" was partially achieved through using color filters in specific lighting situations. You use an orange filter to darken blue skies, a green filter will lighten the color green and darken the color red, a red filter will lighten the color red and darken the color green, etc.

Using these principles, you can apply selective darkening/lightening to B&W images in Photoshop. Play with the red color channel and use it to darken cyan tones. Open Photoshop and open Hue/Saturation control; create a new adjustment layer in Palettesm, then use a blue channel to lighten blues.

[venchka]

Again, look around this forum. Everything you ever wanted to know has been posted before. I remember seeing a lot of links to some really good B&W conversion instructions. Search and you will find.

It's kinda funny. A real B&W negative scanned and opened in Photoshop looks really awful. It takes some doing to make it look like it should.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by venchka

I get my pop in cans at Brookshires.

I used to get my pop with Agfa Brovira grades 5 and 6. Better then Jolt.

johnastovall added 3 Minutes and 3 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

A simple way is get Alien Skins Exposure. It let you do many many things with B&W even emulating film stocks.

[mmuhlenkamp]

Use levels or curves to help with contrast if that's what you're wanting. Bring in the sliders in the "levels" palette to make the darks darker and the lights lighter. Or in "curves" make an S-curve for a similar effect, but I think it works more in a more subtle way than the levels.

Hope this helps.

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by johnastovall

A simple way is get Alien Skins Exposure. It let you do many many things with B&W even emulating film stocks.

I concur with Mr. Stovall on this opinion. I've tried several other B&W conversion plug-ins and actions, but have found Exposure to be the best. I've created my own library of film 'stock' and tweak as appropriate for each image.

Not cheap, but well worth it if you're serious about B&W.