A friend of mine recently challenged me to post a black and white photo every day for 5 days. I figured 5 days wasn’t too bad so this is what I posted and this is what I learned When I started out on the rainbow image I used Silver Efex Pro which has some “recipes” for black and whites. They are pretty nice.
As I went on though I found the black and white adjustment layer of Photoshop CS6 was more than enough. Simply converting an image to black and white depending on the image can just look kinda look dull gray. The black and white adjustment layer can give your images some pop.
Once selected another panel appears where you have a choice to use one of their presets or just adjust the color sliders. The color sliders were great. In the image of the chemist he was wearing a blue shirt and as I adjusted the blue and cyan slider it went to black making some nice contrast with his white lab coat.
Converting a rainbow pic to black and white is the ultimate in counterintuitive processing – but it looks stunning. And the other shots ain’t too shabby.
Looks like you met the challenge successfully, Eloine!