Create Dramatic B&W

I’ve written another tutorial for creating a black and white image. Why? Because this is a method to take an average photo and make it dramatic. Though the other tutorial creates a pleasing but somewhat soft result, this method gets gutsy with drama and contrast.
Enjoy!

Step 1:
Take an average – even uninteresting – colour photo and bring it into Photoshop. Go to Image > Mode > Lab Color.

Step 2:
In the Channels palette, click to select only the Lightness channel, then go back to Image > Mode but change to Grayscale. Agree to discard the other channels. (Trust me.)

Step 3:
Now to add drama! Whilst in the Channels palette, command-click the remaining Gray channel to select it. This will look odd and all over the place, but it’s what you want. Then go to the Select menu and Inverse it.

Step 4:
With the inverted selection still marching around, switch back to the Layers palette and create a New Fill Layer from the Layer menu. Select the Solid Color option and fill with black. (This step is a little unintuitive; after selecting Solid Color, you won’t have a way to input black until you click OK first. Photoshop will then bring up a Color Picker. Hopefully this is fixed in CS2, but I’m still using CS1.)

At this point, things should start looking good, but we’re not done yet! *

Step 5:
Time to sharpen the photo up a bit. Make a copy of your Background layer. With this copy as your active layer, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. If you have a high megapixel (this image is 8 megapixels) camera, you can get away with really going nuts here. On lower megapixels (maybe 5 and under) you’ll want to be a tiny bit more conservative. My High Pass setting for this tutorial is 10.
You’ll want to set the Blending Mode to something that pleases you and sharpens your image; I use Soft Light more than any other mode for this method. **

Step 6:
Lookin’ good, but let’s envelop the subject with a dramatic, darker surrounding. Make another copy of the Background layer. Move it above everything else. Switch its Blending Mode to Multiply. Don’t panic. Switch tools to the Eraser and give yourself a huge brush- maybe even the widest diameter possible. Adjust the opacity of the Eraser to something between 60 and 80 percent and begin erasing out the focus area of your multiplied layer copy. I find it helpful to switch off other layers to do this. The idea is to have a completely erased focus point and fade into much darker corners, framing the subject with drama.

Step 7:
The multiplied and partially erased layer is ready to be blurred. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and crank up the value to around 75. Turn on the visibility of all layers.

Marvel at your Photoshop prowess.

The example photo I have screen shot has one additional step in it that I’ve not covered: a Levels Layer Mask. You may or may not want to play with using one of those to correct the initial histogram of your image. I use them frequently, but this isn’t a tutorial about correcting levels, so I left that part out.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Try the method out on portraits too.

*, **: These are points where you may want to play with the layer Opacity levels to achieve a look that pleases you.