How to Create a Black and White Photograph in Photoshop

Today I am going to teach you how to change a colored photograph into a beautiful black and white photograph using Photoshop. This can be a little time consuming at first, but once you get the hang of it you will be creating black and whites no problem. Please make note that this tutorial is met for everyone, even people who have never used Photoshop before, so if you have used Photoshop please hang in there through whole 'how to insert a photo into photoshop'. So let's get started, shall we?

Step one - Of course, when you first get started you have to insert the photo you would like to make black and white into Photoshop. To do this, go to the top-left of the screen and look for a button that says "File". You are going to click "File", scroll down and find "Open"; click that. Find the photo you would like to use, highlight it with one right click of the mouse, and click "Open" or "OK" to insert the photo.

Step two - Now that you have your photo in Photoshop, the fun can begin. First off I am going to teach you a very easy way to create a black and white photograph using Photoshop. This will take you a matter of seconds, but it is not the quality we are looking for; it just gets the black and white and job done quickly. Okay, so to get your colored photo turned into a black and white photo extremely quick simply press 'Shift + Crtl + U' (if you are using Windows) or 'Shift + Comand + U' (if you are using a MAC) on your keyboard . This will quickly change your image to black and white, but I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are simply looking for a quick black and white job. If you do not want a quick black and white job, DO NOT do this!

Step three - Okay, now that I have taught you the quick and easy way to make a black and white photo I am going to teach you a slightly harder but better quality way. You are going to go to the top of the screen where it says "Image", scroll down to where it says "Mode" and select "LAD color". Once you do this you will notice that there are three more channels added to your original colored image: Lightness, A, and B channels.

Step four - Look to your channels and select the channel that say "Lightness"; this is the channel you will be working on. Go to the top of the screen and select "Image", scroll down to "Adjustments", and select "Levels". Play around with the midtone slider in the levels window to fit your image. I would generally suggest going darker than lighter, but it all depends on how dark the image you are working with already is. You do not want to be too dark.

Step five - Now that you have adjusted the midtones on your photo, go to the top of the page and select "Image", scroll down to "Mode, and select "Greyscale". A new window will pop up and ask if you would like to discard the color information (channels); select "OK".

Now you will be left with a black and white image that is not quite as washed out and has more depth and contrast to it rather than the first way I taught you. I hope you enjoy your new black and white image!