I haven't a clue about all this. Don't know where sepia comes into all
this since nothing I've done involves a sepia conversion. What you're
saying seems overly complicated and rather messy to me. I'll have to read
this again when I have more time.
But, here's the thing: you must have a color image with a good range of
tones beneath the Hue/Saturation layer that you're manipulating in order to
adjust the BW tones and get something that looks close to real BW as a
result. Just desaturating a color image doesn't cut it (unless you want a
shortcut method and crap for a result), and fiddling with the eyedropper is
something I just don't understand.
What I do understand, after converting numerous color images to BW is that
the posted technique is superior in every way to desaturating or converting
an image to grey scale. There are, as I may have mentioned, a couple of
other techniques that also do a good job, all of which afford good control
of the grey scale and allows the user to put a very good and fine tonal
rendition into the final result based on what was in the original
photograph, and which emulates to a degree the use of true BW emulsions
and, if you so desire, the use of filters.
So, what we have is a color image, manipulated with the Hue/Saturation
layer, and the flattened to produce a pure BW image. There is no color
information in the final result.
And why would an srgb image be more useful in photoshop if what you want as
an end result is a BW image. I don't understand that comment at all.
What filters would you be talking about?
Shel
[Original Message]
From: David Miers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 6/21/2004 12:22:29 PM
Subject: RE:Color to BW conversion in Photoshop(Was Gaurav's PAW #7: Why
me?)
I don't know what you mean when you say My question about your
procedure
here Shell is it really color or BW.
Shel
Old BW 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 BW. 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 BW 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
