Photoshop tips provided by CWCC members.

Mono Conversion techniques.

Either of the following methods will create a better mono conversion than you will achieve by simply desaturating the image.

1. Gradient Map:
Open the image you wish to convert to mono.
Press 'D' to set the foreground colour to black.
'Create New Adjustment Layer' - chose Gradient Map.
When the Gradient Map layer appears, click OK.
If any further adjustment is required, create a new Adjustment Layer (Channel Mixer) and follow the steps below.

2. Channel Mixer:
Open the image you wish to convert to mono.
'Create New Adjustment Layer' and chose Channel Mixer.
Tick the Monochrome box.
Adjust the Red, Green and Blue channels to add up to 100.
Adjusting the colour channel sliders has a similar effect to using a coloured filter with black and white film.


Gentle Sharpening.

Open the image.
Filter / Sharpen / Unsharp Mask.
Adjust the settings as follows: Amount - 100% max, Radius - 2.0 max, Threshold - 5 max.
Use with actual pixels visible, use selectively only.
Check 'in camera' settings from Camera menu.

Thanks to Eddy Lane for providing the above tips.