« Black and White Processing 03 | Main | Black and White Processing 01 »

Black and White Processing 02

how to process a black and white image in Photoshop

With the contrast move we might have lost some detail in the shadows or highlights - in this case I masked all the whites except for the sky and some of the darkest shadows. I used the magic wand for the hilites and a soft brush for the darker parts. The wand usually produces a very hard edged mask - use the gaussian blur tool on the mask's channel to soften the edges and get rid of halos. If the result still looks funky, the mask needs some detail work with a brush.

how to process a black and white image in Photoshop

usually I give my photos a slightly warm tone by modifying the red channel. A three dot move from 128 to 131 gives me a subtle result.

<< Black And White Processing 01 | Black And White Processing 03 >>

Comments (2)

Ciao Markus,

first of all I would say you that I consider your site and photographic job probably the best I saw since now!

I spent almost one year in NY city as scientist in the American Museum and if I saw your site before I was certaninly trying to contact you and ask to meet you personally, anyway...

I know Photoshop a bit for my job but never used the "mask".
Therefore I have problems to understand what you exactly mean.

Once you masked the highlites (eg) with the wand, what do you do then?

Which tool do I need to give the Edges?!
Your answer will be very appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Valerio (from Siena, Tuscany)

Simon P M Johnson:

Hi thanks for the great info and time..
Cheers much appreciated.
Simon

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)