What is the difference between desaturate and black and white in photoshop

Plus, there is more to the way PS native formats code their files than color space. As far as Grayscale vs Desaturation. Simply converting is not enough. You need to understand how the colors are changed in each space, and adjust the file accordingly for best results. Different art with different hues and brightness levels will give you different results. Remember that with grayscale you only have one channel to mix and play with, desaturating will keep your 3 RGB channels to give you better ability to adjust.

However, again, it all depends on what your end needs are. I have it myself and he is right, it opens a new world for color correction if you are not familiar with it. Glad to hear that. When you get the book, the first 5 chapters are quite readable, the rest, even the experts are recommended to read at-least twice, so dig in and enjoy. Surely the Channel Mixer under Adjustments is the way to go.

Then you can use Curves if necessary to fine-tune the results. It is only then that you go to Convert to Grayscale which uses the settings that you have chosen. You could also look at the SilverOxide filters www. They produce good results and are available for a wide range of emulsion effects.

Until PS introduced the black and white conversion, I used to do it in a similar way, sometimes I still do it for the flexibility. This gives us the exact same result that we saw with the Desaturate command.

With the color removed, we're left with a basic black and white version:. So what's the difference between using the Desaturate command and dragging the Saturation slider? Well, let's say we decide that we don't want a completely black and white image. We'd like to bring back a subtle amount of the photo's original color.

With the Desaturate command, unless we duplicated the Background layer first and applied the command to a copy of the image, we'd be out of luck.

Since we're using an adjustment layer, nothing we're doing to our image is permanent. We're free to make as many changes as we like without causing any harm to the original photo see our Non-Destructive Photo Editing With Adjustment Layers tutorial to learn more. To restore some of the original color, simply drag the Saturation slider back a little towards the right. Keep an eye on your photo in the document window to judge the results as you drag the slider. The further you drag it towards the right, the more color you'll restore.

As you adjust the sliders take care to avoid dragging adjacent sliders in completely opposite directions. You are adjusting colors which are likely to be found in close proximity to each other in opposite directions — making one color light and the other dark. Instead, adjust adjacent sliders so their values are closer to each other for a smoother and more pleasing result as in this next image:. There are also presets options available from the Properties dialog that you can use as a quick start converting your image to black and white.

Click a preset in the list to apply it. If you find one you like you can use it as is, or continue to adjust the sliders to fine tune the result. The reason for this is that, when you use an adjustment layer you can double click the adjustment layer thumbnail to fine tuning the result at any time.

If you apply the adjustment as an adjustment layer you can blend it into the image below by reducing its opacity. Here I reduced the opacity of the black and white adjustment to reveal some of the original color image to give an almost hand tinted look to this image. You can also, as I will explain below, add multiple black and white adjustment layers and use the built in masks to control how each adjustment layer affects the image. The Black and White Adjustment Layer Properties dialog also gives you the option of tinting the black and white image.

To do this click the Tint button and click the color selector which allows you to choose a color to tint the image. Choosing a bright color will result in a brighter and more colorful tint and choosing a darker color will give a more subtle tone to the image. Occasionally you may want to treat two areas of similar color in a photo in different ways.