Friday, December 23, 2011

How to Process Black and White Images for Detail

I was asked to make a tutorial on how to process black and white images for detail.

Before we go forward, be sure to click on the image above to look at the before and after in a higher detail.

Purpose: The photographer, Terence Bordon, came to me and asked if there’s a way to bring out freckles and skin detail. The purpose and use of this technique is primarily for processing your black and white files if you want to elaborate and accentuate files with rich detail. Surely, it’s not how you would process every black and white image and it differs based on what your intention is.

I usually process black and white images in various methods just based on the intention of use.

Here is the original image

1) The first thing I did right away was duplicate the image and desaturated it (Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation) and brought the saturation slider down so it’s desaturated.

Now you should have two layers, your original and the desaturated copy on top.

2) Next, you want to bring up your Channels palette (Windows>Channels) and click on each of the channels just to see how they look. You want to pick the one that showcases the most detail. In our case it’s the Blue channel.

So how do you use this channel? With your blue channel still selected (by making sure you are clicking on the blue channel), hit Select All (Select>All) and then Copy (Edit>Copy). Now, you want to go to your layers and hit New Layer. Then, create a new layer in your layers palette. Here, you will hit Paste (Edit>Paste).

Now you should have a visual copy of the Blue channel on top of your layers. You should have three layers now.

3) The next step is going to the adjustment layer panel and selecting Selective Color.

There are three settings you need to change under your Black, White, and Neutral sections:

Click on the image to enlarge

4) I would start by putting this adjustment layer in a folder, along with every other adjustment going forward. You can name the folder Black and White Conversion.

5) The next Adjustment layer we’re going to make is a Curves adjustment layer with these settings:

6) With the Curves and Selective Color adjustment layers in your folder, we’re going to do some minor tweaking.

Go ahead and add a mask to the folder. Yes, you can add a mask to a folder (I know a lot of people are surprised that they didn’t know this based on some of my seminars I teach and the reactions I get).

The reason why we added a white mask to the folder is so that we are now going to paint with black on the mask in areas that are either too overexposed or too dark. Essentially, you’re balancing the file.

Here’s a visual of my actual mask. Click on it to see it in detail.