Black and White conversions
October 20, 2011 10 Comments
The Black and White Tool in Capture One Pro 6 is split into two sub-tools placed on individual tabs. The Color Sensitivity tool deals with the conversion from color to black and white while the Split Toning tool deals with toning of converted gray tones.
The Color Sensitivity tool gives you full control of how the conversion from color to black and white takes place. You can control the conversion in 6 color bands.
Controlling the conversion in color bands is very powerful, and it enables you to create great black and white images from colorful landscape, nature or portrait images.
It is important to remember that it is still essential to have a good white balance when you want to create black and white images. The conversion tool works strictly according to colors. For instance, if the whole image has a blue cast, you may not get the desired or expected conversion.
The image above shows 3 versions of the same original image. The left image is the color version. The center image shows the default black and white version you get by just enabling the Black and White tool with the check mark. As can be seen in this image, the red color of the rose and the green color of the leaves get the same gray tone with no clear separation between rose and leaves. For the right image, I have used the individual color sensitivity sliders to lighten up the red color and to darken the color of the leaves. To darken the leaves, I used both the yellow and the green slider as they both affect the gray tones of the leaves.
For portraits, it is often interesting to utilize the red and yellow sliders as they both affect the skin tone colors. For natural skin without makeup, the skin tone pigments vary between reddish and yellowish tones. Traditional panchromatic film made a conversion that turned red colors dark which can have an interesting effect for portraits of women wearing red lipstick. In the example below, the red sensitivity slider has been used to make the lips darker.
On a Mac, you can temporarily reset the slider positions in the Black and White tool, and this makes it easy to toggle between your adjustments and no adjustments. Hold down the option key and click on the tool reset icon. The tool is reset only as long as the mouse key is pressed down. This feature is currently only available on Mac.
Remember, it is always a good idea to use variants when you want to test out different conversions.
Three variants testing different Black and White conversions. Notice the different color of the lips.
¿se puede poner en castellano los comentarios del profesor?
“This feature is currently only available on Mac.”
Pressing Alt + Reset on a pc resets the B&W tool, and the original colors of the image is shown, i.e. the B&W tool is dimmed as if it had not been activated. What is the difference in this from pressing Option + Reset on a Mac?
Hi Eigil,
It is right that you can also temporarily reset a tool on a PC by pressing alt+ Reset on the tool. For the Black and White tool, the idea should be only to reset the sliders and still showing the Black and White image. That way it would be easy to see the effect of using the sensitivity sliders. On the PC it shows the color image when you do a temporally reset of the Black and White Tool.
All the best,
Niels
Hi Professor,
I wonder why this is called a ”blog”.
In my opinion a blog is a web-log where the owner can state opinions or share experiences and discuss reactions. That’s how it should work.
But it seems that you (Phase One) are not interested in a dialog with your readers and users.
As soon as an item gets interesting, you cut off the dialog.
I find this idea of sharing tips and tricks very good. Capture One is an eminent collection of raw-preparing tools, though not perfect for sure. There is a lot of interesting questions to be asked and answered. If you accepted the dialog, I am sure you could learn a lot about how the system is perceived and understood by ordinary users and even how it could be better.
So, this blog should not be a one-way stream of sales promoting stuff. That kind of “information” is too boring: Read and enjoy before you buy! We all get enough of that kind all the time.
The opportunity to really discuss tips and tricks here on a common user level could be a new and refreshing approach to reach your users, learn – and even get new customers!
But you need to participate.
Best regards,
Eigil Skovgaard
Dear Eigil,
I’m sorry to hear that you think we aren’t engaged enough here at the blog. We started this blog with the aim of making Capture One’s many features more accessible to our customers by sharing our knowledge and our best tips and tricks for working with the software. Naturally, a part of this is to be aware of any follow-up questions related to the different posts, and it is our aim to answer all relevant questions.
We can do even better at answering questions here at the blog, but if you are interested in a more in-depth dialogue about Capture One and the different features, you should take a look at our user-forum which might be better suited for what you seek. The user forum has a section dedicated to Capture One which you can find here: http://www.phaseone.com/en/SupportMain/Forums.aspx
All the best,
Niels
Hi Niels,
I am aware of the regular forum of course. It works fine too, especially if a specific problem has to be solved.
This blog is different I think, i.e. the regular forum does not bring new tips and tricks, nor does it bring travelogues with interesting technical solutions from real life.
Moreover this blog offers tips and tricks direct from the “lab”, and with the opportunity to ask an expert directly. “The Image Quality Professor” title, in my opinion, imply that this place is for Capture One users – existing or coming – that strive to reach the highest image quality using Capture One. I am looking forward to this blog working that way.
Best regards,
Eigil
Est-ce que les conseils du professeur peuvent être traduit en Français ou Portugais?
Er det ikke paa sin plads at melde ud paa overordnet niveau, hvis denne dialog (?) foretreaekkes paa engelsk? Blot saa ingen er i tvivl. Jeg ved ikke, om manualerne leveres paa nationale sprog, men det kunne maaske virke formidlende, hvis det kunne annonceres her.
Thank you.
black and white elegance so close q show both personal and photographic design