In this tutorial, we're going to look at two methods that you can use to
We're going to work with this image of Venice.
We have the layer here.
And the first way of creating black and white images is, of course, to use the black and
white adjustment layer.
It's non-destructive and you have the ability to control the original colors in how bright
or dark they appear in the black and white image.
So, for example, if I click and drag on this Red slider,
the pixels that were originally red become darker.
If I click and drag the Yellow slider to the right,
the pixels that were originally yellow
become brighter, and I can make the sky darker, of course, by clicking and dragging on the blue slider.
You'll notice that the black and white adjustment layer has six sliders--Reds, Yellows, Greens,
Cyans, Blues and Magentas.
And this is a great way of making black and white images.
I recommend using this technique,
but in this video, we're going to focus on a different technique.
And if you've been watching the Photoshop Training Channel for a while,
you'll know that I like control.
So I'm going to show you another method.
It gives you slightly more control as to how you're going to create your black and white images.
So, I'm going to click and drag this Black and White Adjustment Layer
to the trash icon to delete it.
Then, I'm going to show you how to create a black and white image using the Camera Raw Filter.
You always want to work non-destructively so I'm going to right-click to the side of
the layer and click on Convert to Smart Object.
Then, I'm going to go into
Filter, Camera Raw Filter.
In the Camera Raw Filter, I'm going to click on the HSL/ Grayscale tab,
then click on Convert to Grayscale.
And this is going to give us a black and white image and you're going to see
8 sliders that are very similar to the Black and White Adjustment Layer.
I can click and drag on the red slider to make the original pixels darker or brighter.
The biggest difference, though, is that with Camera Raw, you get two extra sliders.
We get the Oranges slider and we get the Purples slider.
We don't have a Cyans slider but we have an Aqua slider.
Over all, we have two more sliders, so slightly more control.
Also, when working in Camera Raw, if you have this icon checked,
the Shadow Clipping Warnings
and the Highlight Clipping Warnings, you'll see warnings on screen when we start clipping
pixels, meaning, when we lose detail.
So, if I click and drag that Red slider all the way to the left, you'll see that these
areas become blue.
That is Photoshop telling us that those pixels lost all detail and they're pure black.
And that's something that you may want to keep your eye on
and this becomes very helpful for that.
So, I'm going to click and drag on the Red slider and bring it to about this area here,
also adjust the Oranges to continue making those areas darker.
And I'll make the Yellows a little bit brighter and I'm also going to make the sky darker
by clicking and dragging the Blue slider to the left.
I'm not worried about the water.
We're going to work on that separately in a moment.
Another thing that you may want to do while in the Camera Raw Filter
is add a little bit of sharpening.
As you might have seen in a recent video about sharpening, you always want to sharpen at
100% so that you can really see what's going on, then click on the Detail tab and you can
click and drag the amount to sharpen the image.
And you can also reduce a little bit of noise that we bring in by clicking and dragging
on the Luminance slider under Noise.
If I click in this icon here, you'll see the before and the after.
In this case, I think the sharpening works, so I'm going to press OK.
Now, we're going to work with the water separately.
So, I'm going to press Ctrl J, Command J on the Mac, to duplicate the layer.
Then, I'm going to click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection right around
the bottom part of the image containing the water, then I'm going to click on the New
Layer Mask icon to create a layer mask.
This layer mask will make only the water visible in that layer.
So, now, we can work with the water independently from the rest of the image.
So, I can click on the down-pointing arrow, and then click on the Camera Raw filter label
to bring up the Camera Raw filter once again and make adjustments to the water.
I'm going to click on the HSL tab and then click on Default so that we can start from scratch.
Now, when I start making adjustments to the image, don't worry about the buildings or the sky.
All we really care about is the water.
So, I'm going to make a few adjustments to try to make the water look a bit more dramatic.
And by the way, you can see the blue that is clipping the buildings.
Don't worry about that.
They're not going to be visible on the final image.
Also, while on this filter, we can go on to the Curves tab and click on Point, and then
click and drag to make an S curve like so, to add more contrast to the image, and then press OK.
So, now, this top layer only controls the water.
I can rename it by double clicking on it and typing water; so that's before and after.
And if you want to adjust the water, I can always double click on the label and adjust it accordingly.
And this is just another method that I recommend you use
when making black and white images.
And there's nothing wrong with using the Black and White Adjustment Layer
to create black and white images in Photoshop.
The point of this tutorial is to simply show you another method that gives you slightly
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Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you again soon.