Converting Photos to Black and White

Using Lightroom to edit your photos is definitely a lot simpler than using Photostop. Lightroom is more streamlined, and organized (at least in my opinion). However, there are times when it can be difficult to figure out how to do something in Lightroom. Converting your images to a good black and white can sometimes be confusing if you are not familiar with the way Lightroom works, or if you are simply new to editing photos in general.

There are a few ways to get a black and white photo when using Lightroom. There are some presets that you can use that will just automatically convert your image. However, sometimes these don’t look the way that you want them to. There just isn’t enough contrast, or something just looks off. Along with that, you can set your camera to shoot in black and white, which will give you a black and white image from the get go. OR you can just slide the saturation and vibrance sliders all the way down (depending on your picture this won’t give you a complete black and white result). While these might be the easiest ways to get a black and white photo, it isn’t necessarily the best.

To get the best black and white photo, you are going to want to adjust everything individually. In “Develop” on the third panel down, you should see something that says “B&W”. This is where you can change the individual colors in your photo to get the desired black and white effect without getting a super flat and dull result. There are sliders for basically every color, so you should have no trouble getting a black and white photo.

If you still aren’t really liking the way that your image looks after adjusting each color individually, changing the clarity might help add a little depth to your photo. The best thing to do is to simply adjust the sliders until you find that sweet spot that works the best for your personal preferences! Personally, I am very picky when deciding what images I want to have in black and white. I tend to select the ones that have the most contrast in them because I find that they work better as black and whites. But again, photography is all about personal preferences, so do whatever works best for you!

I hope that this will provide some help when it comes to getting a nice black and white image. Be sure to stop back again tomorrow for another blog post! Feel free to share your thoughts with me, and to share my thoughts with the world!