Question: B&W in Photo Shop Elements 5

rsi1986rsi1986 Registered Users Posts: 113 Major grins
edited August 16, 2008 in Finishing School
Does anyone know any tricks for doing B&W in PSE? I have had OK luck using the convert to B&W feature, but some turn out flat looking. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Here's a link to some of my B&W shots.
http://rsi1986.smugmug.com/gallery/4328864_3jnhV#P-1-12
Stimulating the economy one lens at a time. :super
Robert A. www.imaginglifestyle.com


Comments

  • kini62kini62 Registered Users Posts: 441 Major grins
    edited August 12, 2008
    rsi1986 wrote:
    Does anyone know any tricks for doing B&W in PSE? I have had OK luck using the convert to B&W feature, but some turn out flat looking. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Here's a link to some of my B&W shots.
    http://rsi1986.smugmug.com/gallery/4328864_3jnhV#P-1-12

    I'm not very good at B&W and PSE doesn't have some of the "fancier" tools that CS does for making B&Ws so I use this- it's free

    http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ It's call virtualphotographer and is a plug in that shows up under filters.

    Try it, you'll like it:D

    Gene
  • lucluc Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited August 15, 2008
    There are also two other free b&w conversion plugins which are very nice: one on the PhotoCamel forum from Rense and one from "PhotoPlugins", both PC only.
    kini62 wrote:
    I'm not very good at B&W and PSE doesn't have some of the "fancier" tools that CS does for making B&Ws so I use this- it's free

    http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ It's call virtualphotographer and is a plug in that shows up under filters.

    Try it, you'll like it:D

    Gene
  • BinaryFxBinaryFx Registered Users Posts: 707 Major grins
    edited August 16, 2008
    I am not sure what is available in PSE, although you should be able to use the same theory as found in Photoshop to achieve similar results.

    Hue and saturation are non existent in B&W, tone is all that matters. If a full colour image converts to similar tonal values, when there was good separation in hue and saturation in the full colour image - then the full colour image will require adjustments to the hue and saturation! This may create a very ugly full colour image, which in turn creates a monotone image that has more tonal variation and separation.

    A different approach is "channel mixing", a new free B&W/tinting plug was recently announced here:

    http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=102397


    Regards,

    Stephen Marsh

    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
    http://prepression.blogspot.com/
    http://binaryfx.customer.netspace.net.au/
    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
    http://prepression.blogspot.com/
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