Do you like it better or not (it's totally up to you)? For this version, go to the Layers palette and drag the Channel Mixer adjustment layer below the Gradient Map adjustment layer. I mentioned that I would give you two alternate versions you can achieve with just one click, so in total you can choose from three different high-contrast versions (because three choices are better than one, right?).

Then I went to the Filter menu, under Sharpen, and I added an Unsharp Mask filter with the settings: Amount 85%, Radius 1 pixel, and Threshold 4 levels. Once I clicked OK, I went to the Layers palette's flyout menu and chose Flatten Image (don't do this just yet if you want to try out the other methods). It sounds silly, but think about ithow can that not work? If it makes the photo look betterkeep doing it. Then, I did the exact same thing with the Blue slider. As soon as it started to look bad, I stopped. I started dragging the Green slider to the right, and I kept dragging it as long as the photo continued to look better. How much do you move them? For this image, I moved the Green to 26% and the Blue to 34%, but I came up with those numbers using a tried-and-true method, which I will disclose (for the first time ever) in the next step. Now, you're going to increase the Green and Blue channels to create the extreme contrast. The technique starts with two predetermined steps: (1) Lower the Constant slider (at the bottom) to -8 to darken the entire photo, and (2) lower the Red channel to around 75% (I do this on every image). Well, we're going to use it to adjust our image that's already grayscale, giving it the extreme contrast it so richly deserves.Ĭlick on the Monochrome checkbox in the bottom left-hand corner of the dialog (otherwise, when you move the sliders, you'll get color tints instead of grayscale tweaks). As you learned earlier in this chapter, you can use Channel Mixer to adjust the individual color channels of an image to create a better grayscale. Go to the Layers palette, and from the Create New Adjustment Layer pop-up menu, choose Channel Mixer. So, in the next step, we add the ability to adjust our black-and-white conversion. But there's one drawbackif it doesn't look great, there's nothing you can do to the gradient map because there's really nothing to adjust. You don't have to do anything here, just click OK to apply this gradient map to your photo.īelieve it or not, just the simple act of applying this black-to-white gradient map will usually give you a much better grayscale conversion than the standard method of choosing Grayscale from the Image menu's Mode submenu. When the Gradient Map dialog appears, it shows the Foreground to Background gradient by default (and because you chose black and white as your Foreground/Background colors, the gradient will be black and white). Press the letter D to set your Foreground color to black, and then from the Create New Adjustment Layer pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette, choose Gradient Map.

Open the color photo you want to convert into a high-contrast black-and-white image. Plus, at the end I show you how you can get three different variations to choose from with just a few clicks each. It's about the easiest, fastest, most reliable way to create stunning high-contrast black-and-white images that have incredible depth. I was working on a completely different technique when I stumbled upon this. Some of the best techniques unfold when you least expect it, and this technique is a perfect example.

Scott's High-Contrast Black-and-White Technique

Scott kelby perfect layers