Black and white photography. Photo editor. How to take a photo in black and white

Many photographers agree that old black-and-white photographs have such an attractive charm and charm that their modern digital counterparts, devoid of a certain “soul," are not suitable for them. Of course, black-and-white photography does not imply old photographic films, solvents or developers ... To make it, you just need to have a modern digital camera.

What are the benefits of these shots?

Of course, far from all are creative people who subtly feel the style and character of the picture. Do black and white photographs have any real advantages that an experienced photographer can take advantage of? Yes, and there are a lot of them.

The fact is that black and white photography not only excites nostalgia among the audience, but also focuses their attention on the picture itself. This is especially valuable for portraits: have you ever wondered why war correspondents prefer this particular image format? The fact is that they make it possible to focus attention on the foreground, making everything that is behind the person insignificant. In addition, such an image allows you to process objects in the photo without unnecessary costs.

In addition, black and white photography is indispensable when designing a room in a vintage style, when you want to set a specific background. Even venerable designers often use this method, so that you can also try yourself in this field.

How to make it?

Most modern digital cameras have a mode for shooting automatically in this mode. Should I use the mentioned program? No no and one more time no! It is much more reasonable to shoot in the usual mode, “discoloring” pictures in application programs. In this case, you can adjust dozens of parameters that the camera simply “cuts”. In addition, with the help of the same "Photoshop" you can restore old beautiful black-and-white photographs by scanning them and improving the color balance.

First, we look at the extremely popular Photoshop, and then talk about a couple of other image editors.

A quick way to convert a picture to black and white

First open any photo you need to convert. Go to the “Image” menu, go to “Corrections”, where click on the “Desaturate” command. It should be noted that this algorithm allows you to make any photo black and white in just a couple of seconds, but it is unlikely that the result will inspire you to further research ... That's how a black and white photo is made in Photoshop, if the user is too lazy to spend time on it.

The photo is flat and blurred. In a word, it’s better to use automatic modes on the “soap box” ...

Black and White Adjustment Layers

It’s much better to use the Black and White layer. This method is not only simple, but also reversible. The fact is that when saving in PNG format, the program makes changes to the second layer, and not to the original image, which makes it possible for wide creative experiments. In addition, such a black and white photo turns out to be really voluminous and beautiful.

Convert Image

First, open the photo you want to redo. Double-click the “Background” tab with the left mouse button if it was previously inactive. To create a black and white layer, you have to follow a few simple steps.

Firstly, you need to open the “Correction” panel (go along the “Window / Correction” path), then left-click on the “Black and White” layer icon, which is visually similar to a rectangle divided by a diagonal line into two halves. Immediately after that, a layer with a bleached image will be created, after which several dialog boxes with sliders will appear at once, with which you can set the exact color gradation.

But how to make a photo black and white, but at the same time maintain maximum contrast between different areas in the image? To get the picture as contrasting as possible, just move the sliders until the quality suits you. When you drag the knobs to the right side, the colors will become lighter, but if you remove it to the left, they will become darker.

At the top of the palette there is a drop-down list: experiment with its items. Perhaps you will get some interesting effect. If you click on the "Auto" button, the photo editor will display on the monitor the parameters of the "ideal" image in grayscale. This button can also be used if your experiments in bleaching images have gone somewhere else.

Sepia effect

Remember the relatively recent photographs of the late USSR, where there were not only black and white, but also a shade of brown? Do you know how to achieve such an attractive effect in a modern photograph? Nothing is easier!

At the top of the palette, there is also a Tint flag. If you check it and click "OK", the program will automatically add a brown tint (sepia effect), this applies to all elements of the image. To the right of the flag there is an icon in the form of a colored square: click on it if you want to add some other shades to the picture. So you can do the so-called false two-tone photos.

Here's how to take a photo in black and white.

Gimp

All of the above is true for Photoshop. No doubt, this application is a recognized world leader. But is there any other photo editor that is free and equally functional? There is one. It is called GIMP and has long been positioned as an alternative to its paid competitor.

In fairness, it should be noted that not in all cases such a replacement will be adequate, but it will be more than enough to discolor the photographs of the mentioned program.

Use adjustment layers in “Channel Mixing”

Just note that this photo program uses layers in the same way, so almost all the techniques that can be used in the case of Photoshop are quite relevant here. First, still make sure that the “Background” is open on the image you open, left-click on the icon with the image of a two-colored circle crossed out diagonally at the bottom of the palette, and then select the “Channel Mixing” option in the context menu that appears.

After that, the “Correction” dialog box will immediately open, in the upper part, select the “Monochrome” checkbox, and then select one of the lightening options offered by the program in the drop-down list located here. This method will allow you to get beautiful black and white photos, each of the elements in which is individually edited.

Important! If you want to make a picture with printing quality (which can then be printed), then it is advisable to use a specially calibrated monitor for this. Otherwise, you will probably find disappointment due to the mismatch of the brightness of colors and shades.

Use "Brightness"

What is the Lightness channel for? In it, the application stores all the illumination parameters of the image, which form all the visible contours of the image, too. Thus, if you take it separately from all other picture settings, you get a normal black and white photo.

Open the “Image” menu, select “Mode” there, and then click on the “Channel” option. A palette of the same name will appear, on which you need to select the item "Brightness". If you didn’t like the result, go to the “Mode” item again, select the “Grayscale” option there. Left-click on the “OK” button, after which GIMP will automatically delete all available color information.

Additional gradation of parameters

The picture will become black and white. If you need more thorough and detailed processing of black-and-white photographs, try to “play around” with the parameters, achieving the ideal display of color, brightness and contrast of the image. It should be noted that in many cases this method gives an excessively bright, but pale, pattern. However, at such gradations of color you can play, interestingly blurring the background.

By the way, do you remember that we talked about the techniques of professional photographers at the very beginning of the article? Yes, yes, it is with this method that they create an amazing effect when a person in a photograph literally lives his own life. This “miracle” owes its existence to the usual psychological characteristics of a person: firstly, in pictures in color, we constantly pay attention to the background, even if it is unknowingly. Secondly, black-and-white photographs in themselves make one focus on the central figure. Given that the background is already becoming blurry, the brain involuntarily focuses on the foreground, snatching more and more details.

Using the external module Camera Raw

If you are a professional photographer and work with the RAW format, we recommend using the Camera Raw plug-in to convert photos. It can equally well be used not only in GIMP, but also in Photoshop. Download the module from the official site, after which you can start creating and experimenting.

Proper use of the module

In the Camera Raw main window, open the HSL / Grayscale window. To do this, click on the button of the same name. Put the “Convert to Grayscale” checkbox. A panel with a set of sliders will immediately appear on the right side of the working window. To add contrast to the image, simply lighten any of the areas on the image by moving the slider to the right. However, we talked about exactly the same thing at the top of our article, so you can see the relevant recommendations there.

Then you need to open the “Basic” panel, and then “play” with the “Exposure” slider, adjusting in detail all the parameters of the black-and-white image. Try to “play around” with the settings, after which you yourself will be amazed at what an irresistible impression a “regular” black-and-white photo can make!

Paintnet

If you are not an experienced user, then you probably already have time to doubt your abilities to master the capabilities of the programs described above. Which, however, is not surprising, since they have a rather complicated interface. Because of this, it is undesirable for novice users to install these applications just for the sake of converting several photos to black and white.

And therefore not too confident and “fledgling” artists, we would recommend installing a completely free PaintNet program from Microsoft on your computer. Despite its compact size, it is very functional and can be successfully used for our purposes. However, almost all free photo programs that currently exist can be described in exactly the same way.

Working with layers

Since this application also uses layers, the main stages of our work will be very similar to the techniques described above, but it will be much more pleasant for you to work. This is largely due to the fact that the interface here is as simple as possible. First, copy the layer that will contain the copy of the color image. Go to the "Layers" menu, and then select "Create a copy of the layer." As you can see, everything is as simple and affordable as possible.

However, you can copy the desired piece of image directly from the Layers window. We will need it later. After the above procedure, you have two layers left, each of which contains exactly the same image fragment. In the same menu, “Layers”, turn off the top section of the picture by clicking on the corresponding item with the left mouse button.

Go to the "Corrections" menu, and then select the item with the characteristic name "Make black and white". After that, the image is completely discolored. It should be noted that the quality of the picture in this case may not be too overwhelming. Keep in mind that scanned old black and white photographs are not recommended to be processed in this way, as their quality can seriously suffer.

Is it possible to colorize a monochrome image?

Having spent so much time on the description of the conversion of color images into monochrome, it is time to take up the exact opposite process. We will make a colorful collage from an old grandmother's picture, as if recently shot on a modern camera. Is this real? Yes, but you have to be patient.

First you need to take the Brush tool, and then begin to gently and consistently colorize the fragments of the photo. Once you are done with some part of the image, it's time to change the blending mode for a particular layer. You can focus on "Dimming" or "Soft Light." By the way, this way perfectly painted black and white photographs of flowers. Just note that this requires a graphics tablet, as with a mouse you can hardly achieve the necessary accuracy.

By combining various algorithms in different parts of the photo, you can achieve the effect you need. We deliberately do not say the word "easy", as this whole process will take you a lot of time. Yes, it's long, monotonous and even a little boring, but the result is worth it! Here's how to colorize black and white photographs. If you don’t want to give immodest amounts for arranging photos from your family archives, you can try to do everything yourself.

Keep in mind that such events require patience and perseverance, so we recommend that you stock up on them. Good luck!