Every form of art has its own unique qualities. Certain artwork speaks silently wherein certain art form screams out loud and narrates its story. Arts such as music and theatre arts fall under the second category. Wherein painting and photography fall under the first category. Like we have multiple ways and techniques to paint, photography in itself is a complete library and has its share of techniques in making the stillness speak and express. There are a lot of photography classes and photography sites teaching those techniques. If we require specific and simple information, it is too hard to get. This article is going to solve one such issue.
Spotlight on a little bit of history
Let us zoom and check how newborn photography was. In the beginning, there were no colors in the pictures. The photography camera discovered was capable of producing only black and white photographs. Then colors were introduced into photography while printing them at the photo studio. Later the color films were introduced beginning with the primary colors – Red, Blue, and Green. The color films were positioned in such a way that natural hues are reflected in the pictures taken. Sometimes these colors did not match the original ones who were present at the time of taking the photographs, but then naturally the colors were being added on (to the picture) at that time. As the human race, photography camera had seen its evolution too. From black and white photography prints to color codes to digital cameras and the new era of photography, it has changed a lot for the better of course.What happened to our perspective on photography? – An insight on colors and black & white.
Originally, in the beginning, people were excited to see colors in their photographs. Then in recent times, the craze for black and white photographs have started taking over that craze. Even though the color photographs with digital cameras remain in trend, wouldn't you agree that once in a while we want our pictures to look classic? I would totally agree with it. By classic, I mean like the old film actors' and actresses' portraits which were found in black and white. Yes, you get what I am talking about right? So yeah, we started using filters and started editing our pictures in whichever hue we want it to be in. Some people even changed their photography backdrops using Photoshop and added some spice to it by even adding things that were not there in the original picture. Just to make it seem more attractive. Basically, human beings loved colors in their photographs but liked it as just a plain black and white one too sometimes. For people who knew how to change these effects and colors also sometimes, there was this feeling that their pictures do not have enough clarity or the pixel size does not match their requirement, kind of thoughts were there. That is when all the software used for Photoshop came into the picture (pun intended). Most of us are not regular users of Photoshop, and once in a blue moon, we might want to edit one or two of our pictures using these features of Photoshop software. Just for this we cannot pay thousands or lakhs together and learn everything about photography and these Photoshop software that are there in the usage right? That is why we are going to see only about how to change a color photograph into black and white one without losing its essence using Adobe Photoshop cc.Let’s do it the easy way
Step – 1 Open Adobe Photoshop CC. I know, I know, I said it is for the beginners, and you might have the question of "Why should I have Adobe Photoshop CC for doing it the easy way?" Well, my answer for that would be, "If you really want your picture to look classic with all its original glory and not look like it has been tampered with, then I would suggest that you install Adobe Photoshop CC." Anyways it is easy to use, and we are just going to look at the basic features to edit the hue. Step – 2 Insert the colorful picture you want to add to your black and white gallery. Step – 3 In the menu bar choose Image ? Adjustments ? Hue/Saturation. Step – 4 A dialogue box will open. There will be 2 drop-down menus. In the Preset dropdown menu choose custom. In the next drop down menu make sure the option is Master. Then go ahead and reduce the Saturation level to -100. This would make your picture turn to the black and white glory you were looking for. It is as simple as that. Happy editing beginners!!!