While colorizing black and white photos is a very interesting (and pretty hard to acomplish the right way) task, converting images from color to black and white is not something hard, and this feature has been around for ages in Photoshop. The only interesting thing is that Photoshop CS3 comes with a new tool that will help us with this task, and today we’ll give it a spin…

The main reason behind this tutorial is that, until now, simply converting an image from color to black and white by taking down color saturation didn’t deliver the expected results, and usually you had to work a while to get a decent black and white image, but now things have changed.

1. Open an existing color image, there is no restriction, so simply press Ctrl+O and look for the right image on your hard drive. Of course that you can also scan or open a photo right from your digital camera, it’s your choice.

We have a color image open


2. Now, open the Image menu, choose Adjustments, and then left click on Black and White. To take the easy way, in the future try to remember the Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B keyboard shortcut.

Try to remember the keyboard shortcut


3. Pay attention to the Black and White window - you can use Auto to allow Photoshop to adjust settings according to the properties of the image you have loaded.

The Black and White tool


4. If you want to use a custom setup, adjust the color channels by using the sliders, or simply choose one of the existing presets. Be sure to have Preview checked, to see how your converted picture will look without applying the changes!

Available presets


5. To adjust the tone of a certain color in the resulting black and white image, simply click a point on your image, hold the left button pressed, and drag to left or right.

6. At last, if you want to give your picture a sepia tone or a different one, simply check the Tint button and play with the available settings by dragging the sliders.

That’s all for today, but be sure not to overlook the 5th step of the tutorial. Adjusting your image this way can save you a lot of time in the long run, so be sure to experiment until you get to master this simple, yet powerful tool the right way. Good luck!