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making an image colorless 2

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For perfectionists:

Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer

Check the "Monochrome" box, and you can adjust the different source channels to give you complete control over how the image is converted to black and white.

For example, if there's a red car in an RGB image, converting to grayscale will convert it to a mid-gray. Sometimes that can look a bit dull, so for more impact, you might use the channel mixer to reduce the red channel and increase the others to make the red darker, or vice versa to make it lighter.

Even better, there's also a Channel Mixer adjustment layer for maximum control.
 
Those methods still leave you with what is technically a colour image though.

At some point, if you want a mono image then you are going to have to convert it to grayscale. The use of channel mixer, curves and the colour preferences within Photoshop will let you "customise" that image to control the conversion process.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time
 
While all methods offered above are very good methods, here’s another option that allows you to create a Black and White picture AND adjust the hue and saturation based on it’s originals colors.
(You may even alter the hue and saturation for individual or multiple original colors).


Open a picture

Create an Adjustment layer for the Final B/W Picture.
On the layers pallet:
Click and hold "create adjustment layer" icon then choose “Hue and Saturation”.
Make no changes…just click OK
Click the blending mode DropDownListBox and choose “Color”
If you want …you may Change the layer name to “B/W Picture”.
(R-Click the left icon on the layer, choose properties,
change name to “BW Picture”)

Create another Adjustment layer for the filtering of the B/W Picture.
On the layers pallet:
Click and hold "create adjustment layer" icon then choose “Hue and Saturation”.
Change the saturation to (minus) -100 (which is black and white) and click OK
If you want …you may Change the layer name to “Filter”

Note: When you Adjust the hue and saturation, the colors are converted to grayscale in a different way than they are when you [Image > Mode > Grayscale].

Now on the “Filter layer” D-Click on the thumbnail icon (the black and white circle) to open Hue/Saturation alteration window.

Note that you can alter Hues and Saturations based on:
ALL original colors edit “Master”
choose a color (red, yellow, green, cyan, blue or magenta) then adjust hue or saturation based on that original color.

Example: If you pick red and started with a picture of a red rose in a green garden, then adhust hues you will see only the red rose being adjusted...very nice!

You can also pick a color then click the bottom slide bar and using the alt key you can add multiple colors to adjust the hue and saturation for all.

Finally you will find that this is a non-destructive method to convert to B/W since you are using layers, until of course you flatten the layers.

I found this method some time ago from a Russell Brown site and hope I posted this correctly.

much luck
 
Note: When you Adjust the hue and saturation, the colors are converted to grayscale in a different way than they are when you [Image > Mode > Grayscale].

It's a nice technique. I have done similar things myself.

It's still not actually a black and white image. It's a CMYK/RGB image that appears to be a black and white image.
If you require a 4 colour image that appears black and white then it works (and is better than using grayscale mono images). But if you are going to use the image in a 4 colour print job, for example, then it does not produce a workable result.

For single colour (and I know I am assuming that is what is wanted) you must convert the image to Grayscale or at least realise that only the Black channel will print.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time
 
Foamcow is correct (have a star),the image remains grayscale and some images may even print on your printer with some color bleedthru.

But if you use the adjustment layer method to adjust the hue and saturation to where you want it particulary on individual colors, then flatten the image and finally convert to grayscale you can get much more controlable results than simply convering the original to grayscale.

Try both methods then compare the results side by side.

much luck
 
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