Master the Magic of Mono in Minutes
Turn your full colour images into mono masterpieces in less than five minutes.
Mono images when done well can produce some of the most arresting and dramatic pictures. without the distraction of colour the focus is on the composition and the play of light and shade.
You can take your shots in black and white on any DSLR as a JPEG, but your best files, the RAW files have the colour information even if they have been shot viewed as mono.
To get the best out of your work, you need to be able to convert to mono in post processing. It’s actually really easy and you get full control of the final result, choosing which colours are converted to which shade of grey.
Do you have pictures in colour that you think would work well in Black and white or would perhaps benefit from a sepia toning? This is the tutorial for you and will take you less than five minutes to complete.
Which Shots will work best?
The best kind of shots have strong shapes and tones. The story needs to be told by these features without the need for colour to explain the image.
A good composition is also vital. You can’t turn any old shot to mono and hope that it will work.
Look at the work of some of the great exponents of Black and White such as Ansel Adams to help you understand the genre.
Making the Change
Open your image in your photo editor. In this case I’m using photoshop. In the adjustments panel click on the black and white icon (rectangle divided in half one side dark, the other light). A dialogue box will pop up and the image will be turned to shades of grey.
You now have a series of sliders to adjust each colour individually to set the tones of grey you would like. In this case I moved the yellow and green sliders up to make the ram look whiter and make the grass more visible among the rocks.. I also moved the blue slider to the left to darken the sky and rocks.
You can tweak these as much as you like until you are happy with the image. Aim for a range of tones and a good level of contrast.
The next stage is to boost the contrast. It’s the first icon in the adjustment layer.
For a black and white image, that is all you need to do.
Toning.
To further enhance your mono images you can add a tint. A common choice is Sepia to create an aged look.
This is another straightforward step.
With the black and white adjustment dialogue showing, you can see above the sliders a box marked Tint. Tick the box in front, then click on the coloured box that appears. This will bring up a colour box where you can choose the colour of your tint.
The central slider will change the hue if you move the markers up and down. This changes the colour of the left hand box. Click in the box for the tint you would like, indicated by the little circle. If you don’t like the result just alter again and press OK when you are happy.
Over to you.
Why not look through your back catalogue to try this technique out. If you are interested in taking black and white shots, you will soon get an eye for the right kind of scene as you find out which shots convert well and which don’t.
Happy Shooting :-)
