Did you learn something new today? If so let us know! Oh... PS! Couple this Black and White Technique with the Linear Light Dodge and Burn I showed a few months ago and BAM! AMAZING! Here is the link to that video: ua-cam.com/video/16rx27aR5t4/v-deo.html
blake, you never cease to amaze me - this is by far/hands down THE absolute best and most versatile B&W method i've ever seen - thank you so much and just in time for a B&W long exposure workshop on oregon coast. stoked! what would be even better is if you could put together a Ps Foundations full course in B&W shooting and processing. robert
In B&W photography, it’s not uncommon to use different color filters to produce better images depending on the subject. This is the BEST B&W conversion technique I have ever seen in PS. I’ve been using PS since ‘95. Bravo to you.
No, I have a subscription website, f64elite.com that provides a ton more content than Patreon can provide 😁 it's also more organized and easier to find everything, much better use experience. Updated monthly. What I do here on YT is a fraction of what I do for my elite Members 😁
Fantastic...That's the most logical approach to B&W editing I've seen. Very well explained, informative and helpful. Will save this link to refer back to. Thanks.
Thank you. I am 70 years old and have been using Photoshop since 1994. I have many techniques and actions I have developed for my use over time. Then you throw something completely new (to me) and much better out there. I cannot afford your membership, but I really appreciate your channel and taking my processing up a notch or 2. Maybe next year when tourism is back, I can join and learn more. I have just been watching your videos old and new to educate myself during the the months of enforced near isolation. Thank you again.
That term you spent at Hogwarts really paid off! It's taken me a while, after seeing this a fair few times to get to grips with, but the "Light" has just finally turned on! Many thanks.
You hit it outta the park, Blake! Glad I found this, even I am 3 years late. And the best thing is that this technique works with my ancient Photoshop CS6! Mille grazie!
You have a new subscriber. I like black and white but this method takes it to a new level. Can't wait to try it out. Have always struggled with Photoshop but your teaching methods make it easy to follow. Looking forward to checking out your other videos.
Tried this out on a recent photo I had converted to B&W recently and the difference is amazing. So much more control over just flipping it to B&W and then trying to make more changes. I've learned so much since starting to watch this channel. I've struggled with coming to understand there are 2 aspects, the taking of the photo, and the processing. To get a better photos you have to understand and learn both aspects and this channel has really helped. Thanks.
Sir I watched this video 4 times I took out one of my very colorful portraits of a friend of mine. It came out beautiful, using the steps in this video. Thank you so much I really appreciate that you offered to show us some of the things that we need to learn in order to have better portrait artwork for our clients!😊
Wow! Is what anyone watching this is saying. We really get into a place where we just do what we know, so to see a technique that's very outside the box and creates better results is just awesome!
Fantastic! So much more control than even the B&W adjustment. More about making choices than slider hunting. Thanks for the action and explaining smoothness. Glad I have MyPanel to organize them too.
Excellent tutorial! I struggle with "seeing" in black and white, but now I can embrace color and make it work for my black and white images. Like magic! Thank you
Thanks a lot Blake! This lesson of yours is brilliant! (As alwways) And the picture of the church interior that you used here is fantadtic as well! Thumb up and repost...
@@f64Academy Oh! I didn't know it for sure but I had no doubt tbat it was your picture! Congrats! I am an architect, so, it is no surprise that I do a lot of architectural photography - conceptual, cityscapes, details etc.- and watch a lot of pictures of that kind. I can definitely say that that frame you've taken in France is an artwork! It is so immersive! The air of that day in that cathedral is definitely there! I could almost feel the smell and hear the quietness of that place... It is so atmospheric! Stunning! I watched your another video where you say that we should do more tgan just show pictures to our viewers, we should interact with them. I completely agree! And this frame is a perfect example of this attitude. Many thanks! And even more thanks for your channel, and your passion for photography, and your strive to share your profound knowledge in this field!
Wow! Thank you so much! It was truly a breathtaking experience but one you'd miss if you weren't looking. I'm right there with you, this one takes me right back to where I was standing. I can still feel and smell the brisk air. Those cathedrals amaze me, truly inspiring.
Phenomenal tutorial Maestro! I remember a personal comment you made to me months ago about how color would make a difference in my B&W work. Not 100% convinced at the time. In time I have become a believer. This process elevates the quality manifold. As we say in my part of the world : Muchas Gracias!
Thanks so much for this great tutorial. I was looking for ways to turn a colour picture into black & white with much more vibrant black versus white and this gives me some excellent tools to do that! THANK YOU!
Wow what a great video, I love black and white images. I will give this a try, I am not great on Photoshop but your steps look easy to follow, thanks for your time and expertise. Thanks from Scotland.
You have sold me on the confusion being very useful. I am going to work on this to a much deeper extent. Thank you Blake for another spark of realistic inspiration....
It is my first time watching your tutorial. Great job from you. I will follow with enthusiasm your videos. Also I am happy to see that you had an interesting inspiration for the name of your academy ( f64 ). Yes I learned something new today.
Blake. Thank you for all your videos and educational materials. They are all invalable. Special thanks for this black and white conversion video. I used it on two Manhattan skyline photos taken a few minutes before sunrise. The results are spectacular. I was able to capture the lights in the buildings and the 59th Street Bridge, as well as the pre-sunrise glow in the dark sky. Amazing.
Wow... I had to reach out to thank you Blake for sharing such an amazing process, this has made so much difference to my pictures that I've recently chosen for an Art project. I was less than enthused by my prior attempts and being fairly new to Photoshop anyway, I wasn't really getting the best out of the possibilities it offers. But the way in which you explain this process, I followed along with ease and was astounded by the result.... you could say the difference was black & white! Sorry, couldn't resist, I know... it's bad! Thank you so much once again for all your insights.
I just wanted to say thanks this has been one of the most amazing videos i've seen on black and white editing... no it was the best!!! And teach and make thing so easy to understand you're great guy giving all this and giving it out freely, thanks a million!!!
I know this is two years old, but I just caught up to it. Brilliant!!! As an old film B&W photographer from way back, I was aware of the importance of color, which you could modify through use of filters - the old Wratten red filter making blue skies near black in B&W. I’ve long used the filters in Silver Efex, but with nowhere near the amazing options available in your system. Anxious to go back and reprocess some previously converted images that never sang like this process allows. Well done!
Thanks for the great tutorial on Black and White conversions, I always felt same way as you for the time to process the conversion to black and white after working with the color. I never had these controls to use and used other ways to get my end result. But your way is extraordinary. Thanks Pat
As always, Blake, this is so useful. I also need to go back to the Pallette Effects lessons and the lessons from the Extended Edition to get it more into my system. I love all your tutorials, so thanks again!
Excellent tutorial again Blake, you've changed my perception of black & white imaging from simple bass and treble, to 100 band graphic equaliser, I'll download the action soon, but I'll also have fun manually manipulating colours within black and white photos, cheers, happy new year too!
Another amazing tutorial, I have a process written in my how to photoshop note book, on black and white. And it is such a long process, I barely use it. Your process makes more sense, I wish I knew half of all this information in your head. Thanks for all your videos. 😊
Great tutorial. I used to use the channel mixer to create black and white images mostly for the same basic reason: Allow the inherent color to have an influence on the tones in the final B&W. This method gives so much more control over the process. Thanks so much.
I agree! The channel mixer is quite unpredictable. The parameters are not governed by the data, you can take the channels very far which sometimes produces artifacts and undesirable results. That's why I like this method.
Great tutorial! Love the extreme amount of control this method offers over toning your image. This will work perfect into my developing workflow. I decided to first edit every image in black and white before moving into colors. BIG HINT, which Im sure you are already aware of...After working on the image in black and white I set those layers to only effect luminosity. This allows me to use the amazing tonal changes on a color image without getting those horrible colors you see when turning off the gradient map at 14:40. I have just started using this technique in my workflow and the results are stunning every time.
Very true! I do that often as well, but you do have to be careful as dark areas can get rather muddy. Sometimes those dark areas are brilliantly compelling in BW, but when they translate to color through luminosity that darkness can consume the viewer.
@@f64Academy Thanks for the tip. If it is too much I sometimes dial down on the opacity of the luminosity layer a tiny bit. Otherwise I create a luminosity mask of the shadows and bring them slightly up with a curves adjustment layer. Not sure if those are the best methods but they seem to work okay for me so far.
@@f64Academy That's incredible... I've spent over 15yrs in the industry and honestly would have never thought of doing it this way. Thanks for some new knowledge!
Hi, Excellent video. Made a superb difference to my images that I'm entering to a local competition. I tried to download the pre-set, but its no longer available. FYI.
Great tutorial - thank you so much for sharing - learned a lot and for a process driven person like me the stepped approach and clear instructions were great to see. THANK YOU.
I've just used the action on an image I took in December of a Crow (or similar) that at the time I converted to B&W and thought it was pretty good - and this technique makes it so much better properly pops despite the image being ostensibly green and black in the first place. Fabulous!
Drop the mic... mind has been blown right there. Blake this is fantastic and at the beginning of the tutorial I was composition is as important and colour and now I am swayed to colour just prioritising composition. This is definitely a technique I will begin practising as I have images that fail to shine when converted to black and white. These steps may just be the answer. Thank you.
Blake, this is amazing! I’ve watched enough of your videos to know the importance of color in black & white, but never felt like I was quite getting it. My images weren’t bad, but I knew they could be better. Can’t wait to try this out.
Excellent! You're a good and inspiring teacher! It takes less than 10 seconds to see that you love what you do! This B&W workflow is spot on especially with the reference to your Linear Light Dodge and Burn! I added a Curves adjustment and Levels adjustment as the two last steps (they have to be the top ones in the group) for some final tweaks. I have a special folder with example edits covering different aspects of photo editing where I have saved this workflow. I'm slowly getting to the point "I know I have it somewhere" compared to a few years ago when I could say with certainty "The workflow is in the B&W picture of the Old Man of Storr". So I do my best to counteract that :) Again, a big Thank you for your inspiring videos!
Thanks so much for seeing that and sharing your thoughts with me. I really do love that I get to do this for a living 😁 Your practice seems like a great one. There are so many techniques out there for just about anything it can be hard to keep them in order. Good on you!
I am using a similar technique in Affinity Photo where I use a Curves Adjustment either in the LAB mode or CMYK mode underneath the Black to White gradient adjustment but your technique is much better it covers all the necessary tones one requires for a good BW image. Thanks a lot for the concept.
Hey Blake..no words to reward your approach of doing things in Ps...but on thing I can say : you are PROBABALY (as in the Carlsberg Beer Ad) the most dedicated person I have ever seen on explaining and showing the beauty and complexity of Ps and why not getting it at level of Art! Big congrats! ❤
@@f64Academy You really deserve it Blake! And by the way, I was testing if the colors keep the same accuracy in black and white by using instead of a B&W Gradient Map, just a simple 50% gray layer above (also as check layer) using the Color Blending mode and it seems to work in the same way !
You are dead on about color playing an important part in black and white photos. I am fortunate enough to have learned this very early on. I used to use a bright blue bed sheet as a back drop for my b&w lowkey bodyscape portraits. This was before i bought some proper backdrops. It was very easy to make the background completely black without effecting skin tones in post... I use a similar technique to yours in camera raw. I choose a monochrome color profile and use the black and white color sliders to adjust the color tones. It never occurred to me to do the same thing in photoshop. Your technique probably allows for much more control. I will have to try this!
Well done, Blake. Totally learned something new today. I'm all about the B&W, and this will be my go to workflow. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Silver Effects Pro, but your method is way more in depth. Respect, fam.
Thanks Blake! I wasn’t going to watch because I assumed to know what you were going to say based on your PE course and JW’s courses. Glad I did watch - it never occurred to me to use 3 color adjustment layers.
Did you learn something new today? If so let us know!
Oh... PS! Couple this Black and White Technique with the Linear Light Dodge and Burn I showed a few months ago and BAM! AMAZING!
Here is the link to that video: ua-cam.com/video/16rx27aR5t4/v-deo.html
I learnt that Lightroom is much better for editing than Photoshop what a convoluted mess!.
Terrific video. I'm sold. But I wonder if this is possible to do this in Affinity Photo?
Thank you learned a lot ^_^
blake, you never cease to amaze me - this is by far/hands down THE absolute best and most versatile B&W method i've ever seen - thank you so much and just in time for a B&W long exposure workshop on oregon coast. stoked! what would be even better is if you could put together a Ps Foundations full course in B&W shooting and processing. robert
@@robertmills2079 wow! Thanks so much! That means a lot to me. 😎 So glad you like it!
In B&W photography, it’s not uncommon to use different color filters to produce better images depending on the subject. This is the BEST B&W conversion technique I have ever seen in PS. I’ve been using PS since ‘95. Bravo to you.
Oh wow! Thank you! I am honored to hear that.
My man, you are giving away massive amounts of knowledge. I am very grateful
My pleasure! It really is, I love my job and the reward is seeing other artists grow!
@@f64Academy do you have a patreon?
No, I have a subscription website, f64elite.com that provides a ton more content than Patreon can provide 😁 it's also more organized and easier to find everything, much better use experience. Updated monthly. What I do here on YT is a fraction of what I do for my elite Members 😁
Fantastic...That's the most logical approach to B&W editing I've seen. Very well explained, informative and helpful. Will save this link to refer back to. Thanks.
Thank you. I am 70 years old and have been using Photoshop since 1994. I have many techniques and actions I have developed for my use over time. Then you throw something completely new (to me) and much better out there. I cannot afford your membership, but I really appreciate your channel and taking my processing up a notch or 2. Maybe next year when tourism is back, I can join and learn more. I have just been watching your videos old and new to educate myself during the the months of enforced near isolation. Thank you again.
It means a lot to me. Thank you for the feedback!
Blake... man this is the BEST process for converting color images to black and white I have ever seen!!. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 💯
Oh wow! Thanks so much!
WOW! That is brilliant, Blake. I can’t wait to apply your technic to my images.
Woohoo 😁 glad I could help.
First time i have ever downloaded any type of ACTIONS . But was so impressed by the amount of tone adjustment given in this tutorial . Excellent
Awesome! Thank you so much for your support of my work 😎 I really appreciate it! Enjoy the action!
Superb tips mate. Just tried it yesterday after watching this video and I'm blown away at how much control I get and the results look impossibly good.
Blake is the BOSS !!! this is the best B&W Processing method I have ever learnt !!! Thx a lot
😁 that's awesome to hear!
Wow!Amazing best black and white tutorial that i ever watched.Thank you very much for sharing your God given talent.
That term you spent at Hogwarts really paid off! It's taken me a while, after seeing this a fair few times to get to grips with, but the "Light" has just finally turned on! Many thanks.
You hit it outta the park, Blake! Glad I found this, even I am 3 years late. And the best thing is that this technique works with my ancient Photoshop CS6! Mille grazie!
For sure! All the best techniques are completed with foundation tools 😉
You have a new subscriber. I like black and white but this method takes it to a new level. Can't wait to try it out.
Have always struggled with Photoshop but your teaching methods make it easy to follow. Looking forward to checking out your other videos.
Tried this out on a recent photo I had converted to B&W recently and the difference is amazing. So much more control over just flipping it to B&W and then trying to make more changes. I've learned so much since starting to watch this channel. I've struggled with coming to understand there are 2 aspects, the taking of the photo, and the processing. To get a better photos you have to understand and learn both aspects and this channel has really helped. Thanks.
Awesome, Phil! That is great to hear. I'm very excited for your success.
Sir I watched this video 4 times I took out one of my very colorful portraits of a friend of mine. It came out beautiful, using the steps in this video. Thank you so much I really appreciate that you offered to show us some of the things that we need to learn in order to have better portrait artwork for our clients!😊
Awesome! That just made my day! Glad it worked out so well. You must have paid attention 😁
Wow! Is what anyone watching this is saying. We really get into a place where we just do what we know, so to see a technique that's very outside the box and creates better results is just awesome!
Woot! That's awesome to hear! Thank you!
the most helpful video i've seen about proper B&W conversion by far. thank you so much! :)
Wow, thanks! It is my sincere pleasure ;)
Fantastic! So much more control than even the B&W adjustment. More about making choices than slider hunting. Thanks for the action and explaining smoothness. Glad I have MyPanel to organize them too.
For real! MyPanel to the rescue :)
I've been in photoshop for decades (since v2.0), am a professional retoucher, and yet you always teach me something new!!! Thanks Blake, you da man!
Yes!!!!! Love it!
For me...a real mind changer, always to the point and i like the way you teach. Thanks for explaining it all in so much details, phenomenal, Blake!
Thanks so much! I do love what I do!
Excellent tutorial! I struggle with "seeing" in black and white, but now I can embrace color and make it work for my black and white images. Like magic! Thank you
Perfect! Seeing tones at first is very hard. But with practice and understanding of color, it's a breeze!
Thanks a lot Blake! This lesson of yours is brilliant! (As alwways) And the picture of the church interior that you used here is fantadtic as well! Thumb up and repost...
Thanks! That was quite the day sitting in France, I can still remember that light like it was yesterday.
@@f64Academy Oh! I didn't know it for sure but I had no doubt tbat it was your picture! Congrats! I am an architect, so, it is no surprise that I do a lot of architectural photography - conceptual, cityscapes, details etc.- and watch a lot of pictures of that kind. I can definitely say that that frame you've taken in France is an artwork! It is so immersive! The air of that day in that cathedral is definitely there! I could almost feel the smell and hear the quietness of that place... It is so atmospheric! Stunning!
I watched your another video where you say that we should do more tgan just show pictures to our viewers, we should interact with them. I completely agree! And this frame is a perfect example of this attitude. Many thanks!
And even more thanks for your channel, and your passion for photography, and your strive to share your profound knowledge in this field!
Wow! Thank you so much! It was truly a breathtaking experience but one you'd miss if you weren't looking. I'm right there with you, this one takes me right back to where I was standing. I can still feel and smell the brisk air. Those cathedrals amaze me, truly inspiring.
Great tutorial for black and white photography.
Very helpful!
The ultimate eye-opener! Thank you so much, I'm so eager to try it as soon as possible.
😁 I love it!
Awesome and powerful, great tool! Thanks for this Blake!
My pleasure, Yves!
Phenomenal tutorial Maestro! I remember a personal comment you made to me months ago about how color would make a difference in my B&W work. Not 100% convinced at the time. In time I have become a believer. This process elevates the quality manifold.
As we say in my part of the world : Muchas Gracias!
De nada! My pleasure, really!
Excellent! Definitely learned a thing or two, Blake. Really appreciate it!
Awesome! I appreciate you for visiting my channel.
Thank you for the action down load, amazing that technology allows you to help us this way. Saves me from having to write it all down. :)
Any time! Sure is awesome, huh?
I love these deep dives. They are always a stretch and always useful. Thanks
Thanks! I had a lot of fun with this one for sure.
Thanks so much for this great tutorial. I was looking for ways to turn a colour picture into black & white with much more vibrant black versus white and this gives me some excellent tools to do that! THANK YOU!
Wow what a great video, I love black and white images. I will give this a try, I am not great on Photoshop but your steps look easy to follow, thanks for your time and expertise. Thanks from Scotland.
For sure! Easily when you know what is going on :)
Hi Blake, this is eye popping and mind opening! My first ever UA-cam comment goes to you! Thank you very much! You now have a loyal follower!
Yes! I'll take that award 😁
This was a fantastic video with tons of practical info I can use immediately. Thank you for posting!
Very nice and comprehensive Blake. Thank you! And best wishes for 2021.
Thank you! Same to you!
This is one of the game changing techniques for crafting beautiful B&W images, thankyou!!
My sincere pleasure, thanks for your feedback.
Wow Blake. This is awesome and inspiring. Thank you so much.
My pleasure 😁
You have sold me on the confusion being very useful. I am going to work on this to a much deeper extent. Thank you Blake for another spark of realistic inspiration....
😁 glad I could help
Excellent video. You opened my eyes to new way to edit BW images. Thank u
Awesome! So glad!
Looks very promising ! I will for play with it :) Many thanks and... Happy New Year !
It is my first time watching your tutorial. Great job from you.
I will follow with enthusiasm your videos.
Also I am happy to see that you had an interesting inspiration for the name of your academy ( f64 ).
Yes I learned something new today.
Awesome! I'm so glad to hear it!
as always, so useful and clear; best photoshop education channel out there. Thanks for the actions, as always!
Much appreciated!
As always Blake very impressive........... you just cant go wrong watching how you explain everything with out all the fluff keep up the Magic work
Blake. Thank you for all your videos and educational materials. They are all invalable. Special thanks for this black and white conversion video. I used it on two Manhattan skyline photos taken a few minutes before sunrise. The results are spectacular. I was able to capture the lights in the buildings and the 59th Street Bridge, as well as the pre-sunrise glow in the dark sky. Amazing.
Wow that should incredible! So glad I could help!
Wow... I had to reach out to thank you Blake for sharing such an amazing process, this has made so much difference to my pictures that I've recently chosen for an Art project. I was less than enthused by my prior attempts and being fairly new to Photoshop anyway, I wasn't really getting the best out of the possibilities it offers. But the way in which you explain this process, I followed along with ease and was astounded by the result.... you could say the difference was black & white! Sorry, couldn't resist, I know... it's bad! Thank you so much once again for all your insights.
I love this. And I love your lessons, Blake.
Thanks 😁
Wow, I randomly stumbled across thos video and it's a total game changer for how i make my BnW images.
Glad you found me ;)
I have absolutely learned something today. I’ve been doing this for a long time so that is really saying something. Thank you.
Wonderful! Glad you found it useful!
Thank you, Blake, for this video. I'm new to Photoshop, and I see there's more to learn than I could have ever imagined.
My sincere pleasure! Hang out here for a while, I got ya covered 😁
Excellent lesson about black and white photography
I just wanted to say thanks this has been one of the most amazing videos i've seen on black and white editing... no it was the best!!!
And teach and make thing so easy to understand you're great guy giving all this and giving it out freely, thanks a million!!!
I can probably pretty much throw out all that I *thought* I knew about processing b & w right now. Thanks for the awesome action set, too.
wow that was amazing! thank you for the tutorial and for the preset!!!
My pleasure!
That's amazing. I've been using B&W layer + curves for most of the time, but this is way cooler
I know this is two years old, but I just caught up to it. Brilliant!!! As an old film B&W photographer from way back, I was aware of the importance of color, which you could modify through use of filters - the old Wratten red filter making blue skies near black in B&W. I’ve long used the filters in Silver Efex, but with nowhere near the amazing options available in your system. Anxious to go back and reprocess some previously converted images that never sang like this process allows. Well done!
Thanks Blake for a fantastic B&W video and for the actions. I am excited to begin using this technique on my own images.
Glad you like it! The pleasure is all mine!
Well done, as always Blake.
I appreciate that
That was brilliant Blake! Will take me a while to digest, but look forward to see what I can get. And a big thank you for the Actions...! Stay safe.
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it.
This is fantastic. It was just what I was looking for. Thank You!
Glad it was helpful!
This is very cool Blake, and thanks for explaining it all in so much detail.
My pleasure, really!
Amazing Workflow! Great Job man!
Thanks so much! Glad you like it 😁
I cant wait to try this when I get home this evening. Thanks!
Talk about a belated Christmas present ! Well done young man, you will go far ;)
Thank you! I sure do hope so, no sense going nowhere, haha!
Great Tutorial Blake ! Thanks for the actions in Ps . Wish you all the best for 2021.
My sincere pleasure!
Great tutorial! Gives me a new direction and the path to follow with my B&W work.
OMG This is pure EDUCATION..thank you sooo much.
Thanks 😎 I love what I do!
Very good and valuable information!
Keep up the good work!
Thanks will do!
Thanks for the great tutorial on Black and White conversions, I always felt same way as you for the time to process the conversion to black and white after working with the color. I never had these controls to use and used other ways to get my end result. But your way is extraordinary. Thanks Pat
As always, Blake, this is so useful. I also need to go back to the Pallette Effects lessons and the lessons from the Extended Edition to get it more into my system. I love all your tutorials, so thanks again!
Thanks so much 😁
Excellent tutorial again Blake, you've changed my perception of black & white imaging from simple bass and treble, to 100 band graphic equaliser, I'll download the action soon, but I'll also have fun manually manipulating colours within black and white photos, cheers, happy new year too!
Awesome! Great analogy!
Wonderful tutorial - learned a lot Blake. I will be following you on your youtube channel. Thanks again my friend.
Sweet! Thanks for your support.
Another amazing tutorial, I have a process written in my how to photoshop note book, on black and white. And it is such a long process, I barely use it. Your process makes more sense, I wish I knew half of all this information in your head. Thanks for all your videos. 😊
That's awesome! There is always room for improvement!
That was a fantastic tutorial. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Great tutorial. I used to use the channel mixer to create black and white images mostly for the same basic reason: Allow the inherent color to have an influence on the tones in the final B&W. This method gives so much more control over the process. Thanks so much.
I agree! The channel mixer is quite unpredictable. The parameters are not governed by the data, you can take the channels very far which sometimes produces artifacts and undesirable results. That's why I like this method.
This is one of the coolest techniques you've shared. sweet!
Thanks so much!
Thanks very much for the action. The process you show seems so logical, however you have to come up to that idea! You did!
Great tutorial! Love the extreme amount of control this method offers over toning your image. This will work perfect into my developing workflow. I decided to first edit every image in black and white before moving into colors.
BIG HINT, which Im sure you are already aware of...After working on the image in black and white I set those layers to only effect luminosity. This allows me to use the amazing tonal changes on a color image without getting those horrible colors you see when turning off the gradient map at 14:40.
I have just started using this technique in my workflow and the results are stunning every time.
Very true! I do that often as well, but you do have to be careful as dark areas can get rather muddy. Sometimes those dark areas are brilliantly compelling in BW, but when they translate to color through luminosity that darkness can consume the viewer.
@@f64Academy Thanks for the tip. If it is too much I sometimes dial down on the opacity of the luminosity layer a tiny bit. Otherwise I create a luminosity mask of the shadows and bring them slightly up with a curves adjustment layer. Not sure if those are the best methods but they seem to work okay for me so far.
@@sburgos9621 perfect thoughts. Also consider blend if and blending the darks into the midtones. That's usually what I do.
@@f64Academy Thanks! Using blend if would save me file space too by not having to create additional layers.
Okay, I tried it Blake and wow! What a difference. I tried it on a color photo I had converted to B&W and then compared the two. Thank you again 😃
Sweet!
Nicely done!! Thanks Blake
My pleasure!
First time I've seen this technique... awesome stuff.
I just made it up 😁
@@f64Academy That's incredible... I've spent over 15yrs in the industry and honestly would have never thought of doing it this way. Thanks for some new knowledge!
Awesome :) I look forward to using this method with my black and whites :)
Good stuff! Glad I could help.
This is a great way for processing black & white photos. Thanks! As an f64 elite member i recognize the steps 👌
Brilliant workflow as always 👍
😁
Thanks for the demo and the actions. Excellent advice.
You bet!
Hi, Excellent video. Made a superb difference to my images that I'm entering to a local competition. I tried to download the pre-set, but its no longer available. FYI.
Awesome glad it helped. It's still there, check the description instead of the end of the video.
Great tutorial - thank you so much for sharing - learned a lot and for a process driven person like me the stepped approach and clear instructions were great to see. THANK YOU.
Awesome! I really appreciate it! Thank you!
I've just used the action on an image I took in December of a Crow (or similar) that at the time I converted to B&W and thought it was pretty good - and this technique makes it so much better properly pops despite the image being ostensibly green and black in the first place. Fabulous!
Awesome! Glad to hear it!
thanks for the lesson and actions - works like a charm
My pleasure!
Thanks Blake! Fantastic tutorial.
😁 thank you!
Drop the mic... mind has been blown right there. Blake this is fantastic and at the beginning of the tutorial I was composition is as important and colour and now I am swayed to colour just prioritising composition. This is definitely a technique I will begin practising as I have images that fail to shine when converted to black and white. These steps may just be the answer.
Thank you.
Blake, this is amazing! I’ve watched enough of your videos to know the importance of color in black & white, but never felt like I was quite getting it. My images weren’t bad, but I knew they could be better. Can’t wait to try this out.
Awesome! It's a great technique, you'll love it.
Excellent! You're a good and inspiring teacher! It takes less than 10 seconds to see that you love what you do! This B&W workflow is spot on especially with the reference to your Linear Light Dodge and Burn! I added a Curves adjustment and Levels adjustment as the two last steps (they have to be the top ones in the group) for some final tweaks. I have a special folder with example edits covering different aspects of photo editing where I have saved this workflow. I'm slowly getting to the point "I know I have it somewhere" compared to a few years ago when I could say with certainty "The workflow is in the B&W picture of the Old Man of Storr". So I do my best to counteract that :) Again, a big Thank you for your inspiring videos!
Thanks so much for seeing that and sharing your thoughts with me. I really do love that I get to do this for a living 😁
Your practice seems like a great one. There are so many techniques out there for just about anything it can be hard to keep them in order. Good on you!
WOW and double wow & thank you, very useful and yes I did learn a lot today, it's going to need a bit of time to bed in
Awesome! Glad you liked it!
I am using a similar technique in Affinity Photo where I use a Curves Adjustment either in the LAB mode or CMYK mode underneath the Black to White gradient adjustment but your technique is much better it covers all the necessary tones one requires for a good BW image. Thanks a lot for the concept.
Hey Blake..no words to reward your approach of doing things in Ps...but on thing I can say : you are PROBABALY (as in the Carlsberg Beer Ad) the most dedicated person I have ever seen on explaining and showing the beauty and complexity of Ps and why not getting it at level of Art! Big congrats! ❤
Oh wow! That is a badge of honor I will gladly take 😁 thank you!
@@f64Academy You really deserve it Blake! And by the way, I was testing if the colors keep the same accuracy in black and white by using instead of a B&W Gradient Map, just a simple 50% gray layer above (also as check layer) using the Color Blending mode and it seems to work in the same way !
You are dead on about color playing an important part in black and white photos. I am fortunate enough to have learned this very early on. I used to use a bright blue bed sheet as a back drop for my b&w lowkey bodyscape portraits. This was before i bought some proper backdrops. It was very easy to make the background completely black without effecting skin tones in post... I use a similar technique to yours in camera raw. I choose a monochrome color profile and use the black and white color sliders to adjust the color tones. It never occurred to me to do the same thing in photoshop. Your technique probably allows for much more control. I will have to try this!
Awesome! Such a great technique! Glad you discovered it so long ago. Ok Photoshop you do have a ton more control, but Lightroom is great in a pinch.
Great tutorial! Liked and subscribed! Greetings form Italy.
Awesome, thank you!
Well done, Blake. Totally learned something new today. I'm all about the B&W, and this will be my go to workflow. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Silver Effects Pro, but your method is way more in depth. Respect, fam.
Heck yes! I appreciate it! So glad I could teach you something new 😁
Thanks Blake! I wasn’t going to watch because I assumed to know what you were going to say based on your PE course and JW’s courses. Glad I did watch - it never occurred to me to use 3 color adjustment layers.
Thanks! I don't typically promote myself on YT without offering value. I will always provide value with every video 😁
Great tutorial. I love a B&W photo but not done one in ages! I'm definitely going to use this method thank Blake 👍