> I don't know what you mean when you say "My question about your procedure > here Shell is it really color or B&W." > > Shel > >
Old B&W images had what was called sepia I believe and to imitate that of course we need to use color. If you convert to grayscale, RGB is now gone. If you desaturate and use a eyedropper point in Photoshop with the image still in RGB mode every point on the image will have equal RGB numbers indicating true shades of Black, grey, or white. An image with these numbers is what I referred to as true B&W. It is also more useable with various filters in Photoshop then one in grayscale mode although it looks the same in appearance. I'm not saying one is wrong and the other is right, just wondering as I've not actually tried your procedure yet and tested this in Photoshop. The bottom line is of course if the results are pleasing, then however you arrived there it is right. Your procedures seemed to overcomplicate the process of conversion to B&W and I'm simply wondering what if anything is to be gained doing this vs. simply desaturating, working the combined RGB graph only for levels, and adjusting contrast in curves. I've read other writings about conversion and they too seemed to feel that doing the simple conversion I described leaves something to be desired, but when I played with it I couldn't see the advantage. I need to take the time to play with your method to see again though. Dave
