BW Gradient Map Conversion (Sitter)

SitterS · March 24, 2007

:smack First tutorial removed because basically it "SUCKED" and no one could understand it. Per guidance by George (thank you) a new one has been posted below:

Here are a few pictures to view where I used this conversion. Thanks for all the compliments given on the below thread.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57173

I happened to come across a BW conversion in Kevin Kubota's "Digital Photographers Bootcamp' book which I tried. It is the only conversion I use which seems to provide me with consistent results each time for my BWs. I like the conversion because I can select my tone for the BW. I have been asked to post the conversion steps which I will gladly attempt. Hopefully this tutorial will make more sense than the first one I posted. If not then I will simply give up and shamefully go back to washing clothes and cleaning the house.

Of course to get a good BW you should start off with a good color photo.
Once you have accomplished this follow the steps below to convert to BW.

NEW and Improved Tutorial (I hope)

BW Conversion using the gradient map

1. First make sure that you set your foreground color to black and background color to white.

1. Go to your layers palette and click on the half black/white circle at the bottom and choose gradient map or go to your toolbar and choose Layers>New adjustment layer>Gradient Map.

2. The gradient map box will appear. Click once inside the gradient bar.

3. After clicking inside the gradient bar the gradient editor will appear.

4. Place cursor right below the gradient bar in the middle. You should get a thumbs up with dialog stating "click to add a stop". When you click here a black slider will appear. Check arrow on diagram. Double click on black slider and the color picker box will appear.

5. Here is where you select your tone for the BW. In LAB you can select your numbers for the color of BW. For the most part I use L (54), A(1) and B(2,3 or 4). Mostly I use 54, 1 and 2 for my conversions. For a truer BW you can select 54, 0 and 0 or 54,0 and 1. This is strictly based on preference. Once you select the numbers click OK and this will take you back to the "gradient editor".

6. In the gradient editor you can adjust the middle black slider to lighten or darken the picture. Notice as you adjust the slider that the 'location' number changes. Usually I will use 52 or 53% but the choice is yours. As a general rule of thumb I try to watch the skin tones when adjusting. Click OK and this will bring you back to the gradient map.

7. Click ok when this box appears and there you have completed the gradient map conversion by Kevin Kubota.

That is all there is to the BW conversion. I sure hope this makes sense to everyone as it has taken me 3 cups of coffee and two hours this morning to put this together. I am sure George and others who have written tutorials could have done it in minutes. One good thing is that I learned something new. Thanks George:thumb

Additional Steps:

After converting to BW I will flatten the picture and go to:

1. Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight to adjust the shadows and highlights in the picture. Sorry guys can't post a tutorial on using this tool or I will be here all day doing this. There are tutorials on using this tool on the web if you do a search.

2. Add a Selective Color Layer: will adjust the Black, Neutral and White selections only. In each selection use the black slider to adjust these colors only slightly.

3. In the end I usually duplicate the layer and change the mode to either soft light and or overaly and reduce opacity. As a general rule I adjust to 16% opacity.

*** During the additional steps I always use masks to paint back in areas that are too dark or get blown.

Well....I hope this is easy to follow. If not please feel free to ask questions if a step does not make sense. I will do my best to try and explain.

Shane

slapshot · March 24, 2007

SitterS wrote:

I posted some pictures tonight in this thread and was asked for steps for the BW conversion which I will gladly share. Can't take credit for the conversion as I got it out of a book by Kevin Kubota. I have tried so many conversions but this is all I use now. It gives me consistent results but the key is tweaking after the fact and is of course all a matter of taste and preference on tones. Enjoy!

Here are the pictures
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57173

Conversion Steps:

sorry, but this makes no sense what-so-ever

SitterS · March 24, 2007

slapshot wrote:

sorry, but this makes no sense what-so-ever

I am not familiar with any other version of photoshop except CS2 so maybe the gradient map is not available with other versions. Don't know of any other way to explain it.

carmel6942 · March 24, 2007

SitterS wrote:

Can't take credit for the conversion as I got it out of a book by Kevin Kubota.

Which book did you get it from? This beginner needs all the help he can get.

Thanks

System · March 24, 2007

shane-

you might want to expand your tutorial some-

it would require some more work but might be easier for more to follow it-

look at http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/2302389 as what I think is an easy to follow tutorial-

I've used mwsnap http://www.snapfiles.com/get/mwsnap.html (free download) to capture pics of screens, palettes, etc.-

and you might list the book and author so all know where you got it from (you've given credit to kubota, just might give a little more info)-

it's your choice to do this how you see fit; I'm just suggesting some things; I think it's gracious of you to write this up-

slapshot · March 24, 2007

SitterS wrote:

I am not familiar with any other version of photoshop except CS2 so maybe the gradient map is not available with other versions. Don't know of any other way to explain it.

I apologize if my previous post was a bit short...I should have said, this makes no sense TO ME. I tried this last night but was having difficulty, for some reason I kept ending up with something akin to a BW negative.

I appreciate you posting this technique...I'll have to play with it to get it down, as your results with it are very nice

SitterS · March 24, 2007

slapshot wrote:

I apologize if my previous post was a bit short...I should have said, this makes no sense TO ME. I tried this last night but was having difficulty, for some reason I kept ending up with something akin to a BW negative.

I appreciate you posting this technique...I'll have to play with it to get it down, as your results with it are very nice

No problem on the response. I guess this is why I am not a teacher.

Shane

SitterS · March 24, 2007

gefillmore wrote:

shane-

you might want to expand your tutorial some-

it would require some more work but might be easier for more to follow it-

look at http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/2302389 as what I think is an easy to follow tutorial-

I've used mwsnap http://www.snapfiles.com/get/mwsnap.html (free download) to capture pics of screens, palettes, etc.-

and you might list the book and author so all know where you got it from (you've given credit to kubota, just might give a little more info)-

it's your choice to do this how you see fit; I'm just suggesting some things; I think it's gracious of you to write this up-

George thanks for helping me out.

I have often wondered how everyone got the great screen prints for tutorials. Will work on it again and post. I guess I am better at taking a pic and editing then explaining to others....that for sure. Let me give this another try.

Shane

SitterS · March 24, 2007

carmel6942 wrote:

Which book did you get it from? This beginner needs all the help he can get.

Thanks

Kevin Kubota's "Digital Photographers Bootcamp".

System · March 24, 2007

shane-

no, it doesn't take me a little bit of time, it takes a long time-

I think the tutorial looks great and from what I can remember of the book, it's right-

I'll try to go over it later to doublecheck-

the tutorial really looks good-

SitterS · March 24, 2007

George...do you do an individual snapshot and then save each one one at a time. That is what I did but is there a better way? Now that I think about it probably not.

Well at least I learned something new this morning...

Shane

System · March 24, 2007

I assume you're talking about the mwsnap-

as I would go thru whatever on ps, as the palette box or whatever came up, I would take a 'snapshot' of it and save it-

then, along with whatever pics I had, I would upload them to smugmug in a closed (private) gallery and link them to dgrin as I was writing the tutorial (in my case, a review of a chapter in a book)-

might be an easier way, but then again, I'm not doing these month in and month out-

SitterS · March 24, 2007

gefillmore wrote:

I assume you're talking about the mwsnap-

as I would go thru whatever on ps, as the palette box or whatever came up, I would take a 'snapshot' of it and save it-

then, along with whatever pics I had, I would upload them to smugmug in a closed (private) gallery and link them to dgrin as I was writing the tutorial (in my case, a review of a chapter in a book)-

might be an easier way, but then again, I'm not doing these month in and month out-

That is the same way I did it.

Shane

carmel6942 · March 24, 2007

Shane,

Thank you for doing the tutorial

. the second one is very good I plan on following it to do my first conversion soon.

saurora · March 24, 2007

Shane, your revised version is very easy to follow and the tut looks good. I just did a really quick conversion (using your numbers) and it turned out pretty decent. I need some work with the shadow/highlight tutorial as well! The only thing I noticed is when I was on step #6 I could not discern any difference adjusting the slider. Maybe I'm blind? Anyway, I like the conversion and with more practice I think it will get me to a certain look I've been wanting to achieve. Thanks again! :saurora

SitterS · March 25, 2007

The only thing I noticed is when I was on step #6 I could not discern any difference adjusting the slider. Maybe I'm blind? Anyway, I like the conversion and with more practice I think it will get me to a certain look I've been wanting to achieve. Thanks again! :saurora[/quote]

Not sure why you couldn't tell a difference when adjusting the middle slider. It really is what you do after converting to bring out the tones that makes it work. It took me awhile of playing around to finally come up with something that I like. Good luck!

Shane

System · March 25, 2007

shane-

the instructions seemed to work fine-

here's one with the conversion (and a little more added)-

Awais Yaqub · March 25, 2007

i also mostly use gradient bw coversion and vitual photographer .thanks for complete tutorial

mikeway · March 25, 2007

Thanks
Thanks for the tutorial. It is a good alternative and will work well.

Mike

SitterS · April 17, 2007

I have had quite a few emails sent to me regarding this BW conversion. Some are saying that I can't get the look that you do after converting. It is the steps after converting the pic to BW that I feel makes the difference.

I always use the shadow/highlight tool, selective color tool (adjusting only black, whites and neutrals), curves and or levels and also color range to select a specific area that I feel needs tweaking in the highlights mids, and or shadows. No order or specific numbers being used as each picture is different and requires different things. Many masks used as well to paint back in areas that are too dark or light after doing an adjustment. Always at the end I will duplicate the layer and change the blending mode to soft light at about 16% opacity. That just usually works for me. Wish I could be more specific but I can't.

I think alot of the above tools are only available in CS and CS2. Another option for tweaking the BW conversion is:

Before converting using the BW gradient map conversion, go to your layers palette and click on the circle (half white/half black) and add a color balance layer or a hue/sat layer. Click ok. Then do the conversion. Now you can go back to the color balance layer or hue/sat layer and adjust the sliders to tweak the tones in the picture.

Shane

Khaos · April 20, 2007

Another way to do this is to add the gradient map layer making sure the foreground color is black before doing so. This will give you your BW shot. Then click on the background and add a color balance layer and adjust the shadow, midtone, and highlights to your liking.

jdryan3 · April 20, 2007

Great shot George. Tone and contrast are spot on.

gefillmore wrote:

shane-

the instructions seemed to work fine-

here's one with the conversion (and a little more added)-

BW Gradient Map Conversion (Sitter)

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