Convert a photo to black and white

Why six sliders

A red shirt and a green lawn can be equally bright, and a plain conversion turns them into the same gray. Black & White lets you decide instead: each slider sets how light the parts of the photo that were that color become.

• Reds and Yellows up lighten skin and lips, for smooth, bright portraits.
• Blues down darkens a blue sky so white clouds stand out, the look of a red filter on black and white film.
• Greens up lifts leaves and grass in landscapes; down makes them deep and moody.

The sliders start at Photoshop's usual mix and run from −200% to 300%, so there is room for strong looks. Watch faces as you go: pushing one color far can make skin look blotchy.

Other ways to go gray

Black & White is the flexible route, but the Image › Adjustments menu has others:

For a signature or a page photographed on paper, Threshold turns the paper clean white and the ink solid black; move its level until faint strokes stay and the shadows go. Export those as PNG so the edges stay crisp, and see JPG to PDF to put them in a PDF.

Finishing touches that suit black and white

Without color, a photo lives on light and shade, so the other adjustments matter more than usual. Each is a layer of its own:

• Curves or Levels (Ctrl L) set the contrast: a gentle S-curve deepens the shadows and brightens the highlights.
• Light & color has Clarity, which brings out texture in skin, stone and wood.
• Filter › Vignette darkens the corners and draws the eye to the middle, a classic darkroom touch.
• Filter › Add Noise & Grain adds film grain.
• Tint, a box in the Black & White panel, colors the grays, a warm brown at first, for a sepia print.

Hide any adjustment with the eye beside it in Layers to compare with and without, and lower the Black & White layer's Opacity to let a little color back for a muted look. A thin white or black border finishes a black and white print nicely.

Keeping one color

The color-splash look, a red coat in a gray street, takes one more step. An adjustment added while something is selected only changes the selection, so:

• Select what should keep its color: Select › Subject (AI) finds the main subject, and the Select an object tool (W) outlines the thing you click. Both use AI that runs on your PC.
• Choose Select › Inverse (Ctrl Shift I).
• Add Black & White. Everything but the subject turns gray.

The selection becomes the adjustment's mask. Paint black on it with the Brush (B) to bring color back anywhere, white to take it away.

Converting before you print also helps at home. A printer set to grayscale decides on its own how each color turns to gray; doing it yourself first shows you the result on screen, where a too-dark face or a faint stamp is easy to fix.