How to edit A Black And White Photo
Editing Techniques for Better Black and White Photos (Lightroom Tutorial)
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YouTube what is good today we were
talking about some editing techniques
that you can use to take your
black-and-white photography to the next
level so the example photo in today's
video is one that I shot and me laughs
behind the scenes video and when I was
making that video I said that I didn't
exactly like that photo and I still
think it could be better but when I was
editing that image I used a lot of
techniques that can really enhance your
black and white photo and I wanted to
share them with you now it's important
to note that during today's video we're
going to be editing this photo but
typically when I'm using these
techniques I'm refining the edit a lot
more today is just kind of like a rough
draft I'm just showing you how I do
things and then if I was editing this
for myself or for my instagram or to
print I would definitely go in and do a
lot more work it can be a little bit
tedious so just keep that in mind as
you're watching the video and as they're
taking these techniques and applying
them to your own photography this video
might only be you know around 10 minutes
long but it could take an hour to get
these techniques perfect making your
photo look as amazing as it could look
before we get going I want to mention
this article on peda pixel I linked it
in the description of this video it is
so cool because it shows the before the
test prints of these iconic film photos
and then you get to see the final photo
and you see how photographers made notes
on the image so they can dodge and burn
the photo and essentially edit the image
in the darkroom and it's really cool to
see what they did to really enhance
these photos and I think it would
inspire a lot of you so you can take the
techniques from this video you can see
how the masters did it and that article
and put it all together and really make
some amazing black-and-white images so
check out that link after the video is
done if you enjoyed hit that thumbs up
subscribe for more let's get into the
Edit first up basic adjustments this is
our starting point right here the first
and most important thing that we have to
do to this photo is we have to make it
black and white so if you are using
Lightroom you can go ahead and just
scroll down here to your color tab and
go ahead and click B&W and now your
photo will shift to black and white now
the next thing we're gonna do with this
image is we have to crop this photo now
if you watch the behind the scenes in
the last video you know that I actually
wasn't happy with this photo because I
felt like our subject being this person
crossing the street was a little bit too
far away but after some thought I said
you know what it's actually not
that we can crop in pretty far on this
photo so I'm gonna switch my crop to one
point one factor and now we are going to
zoom in substantially now this photo was
shot on a Nikon d810 so I'm lucky enough
to have pretty good resolution with this
file so I can do a crop like this
without losing a lot of detail and
really affecting the image so as far as
the crop goes I think that right there
looks good now we're gonna do some basic
adjustments real quick we're not gonna
do anything crazy with this the first
thing I want to do is add some contrast
into this image gonna bring my contrast
up quite a bit now you'll notice this
image is kind of bright and if we're
going for you know more of a moody
black-and-white image that needs to
change so I'm gonna bring my exposure
down quite a bit on this photo to add
some more drama into the image and you
can see right away it's much more
dramatic already off the top so now I'm
gonna bring my shadows up just a little
bit to compensate for that change to our
exposure I'm gonna bring my highlights
down a little bit and I'm gonna bring my
whites down just slightly and my blacks
down just slightly as well and I think
that is good for basic adjustments like
I said nothing too crazy with this one
so we got the basic adjustments out of
the way step number two is the color
slice now I know you're thinking wait
color slider it's color adjustments this
is a black and white photo yes that is
true but in Lightroom making changes to
the color sliders can actually affect
the luminance of a particular color even
though the photo is black and white let
me show you what I'm talking about the
one we will be changing is the yellow
slider right here so notice if I bring
the yellows all the way down how these
yellow pieces of the image if it were
color they darken up and if I bring it
all the way to the right notice how they
brighten up that is what I want to
change I want to make these Street lines
pop out a little bit more to create some
lead lines heading into our subject
which is that man crossing the street so
we're gonna go ahead and bring this to
right about here and I'm gonna do the
same thing with the orange I'm gonna
bring the orange up not as high but
right about 2-0 and those are the only
ones that I'm going to change but it's
important to remember that when you have
a black and white photo you can still
nebula how the colors look so step
number three is painting in light to
enhance the photo one thing I love about
this image is we have this person
crossing the street which is a nice
subject but we also have a lot of light
behind them and in front of them being
the light reflecting off the street so
we can enhance that in lightroom let's
do it now we're going to use the brush
tool to isolate our subject now what I'm
going to do is make sure our brush is a
pretty decent size with a pretty decent
feather and I'm going to go ahead and
make sure our show selected mask overlay
is checked on so I'm going to drop our
brush right here I'm going to click one
point and then I'm slowly going to brush
out in a circular motion now we got our
brush laid down I'm going to go ahead
and click this to remove our overlay and
now I'm going to adjust our exposure I'm
gonna bring our exposure up to brighten
up the center of the image and this
adjustment will make a lot more sense as
we go through the Edit so I'm gonna
bring this to right about here I think
that looks pretty good and what I might
do now is I might grab this a race right
here I might bring the feather up and
once again select show selected mask
overlay kind of move this around erase
some points and then make more
adjustments accordingly brush different
pieces back in and I think for now right
here looks good at the end of the edit
if we want we can go back and we can
make further adjustments to where
exactly this brush is manipulating the
photo so we really brought up that light
around our subject and now you can see
our subject is really popping out right
there in the center of the image but
there is more that we can do to isolate
this subject there's a few techniques
that I like to use they're pretty simple
let me show you now first thing we are
gonna do is increase art and then
getting I think I finally said that
right you guys love to give me a hard
time for saying that word wrong I'm
gonna bring this to right around
negative 40 and I'm gonna add a little
bit of feather to it obvious reason why
we are increasing the vignetting on this
photo is to bring our eye towards the
center of the image this is where the
light is this is where our subject is so
darkening up the corners brings your
eyes right
middle next up we're going to introduce
some graduated filters into this photo
now what a graduated filter is
essentially you're applying a brush but
you're applying it in a graduated way so
notice how I slide this out right here I
click it pull it down and now I can make
changes to the photo in a graduated way
to this side of the image so check this
out we're gonna bring the exposure all
the way down notice how at this end of
the graduated filter the exposure is
very dark and then it slowly fades into
our photo that is what we are going to
be utilizing today sorry that wasn't the
most elegant explanation of what a
graduated filter does but basically
you're just applying a change in a
graduated way on any piece of the photo
based on where you drop and slide this
filter so this is what we're gonna do
we're gonna bring the exposure down on
this side we're gonna bring it to right
about negative 20 I believe I'm gonna
bring my shadows down and I'm gonna
bring my highlights down as well now
what I'm gonna do to save time is I'm
gonna add a graduated filter to the
bottom of this photo into the right side
of the photo now I'm not gonna talk
while I do it I'm just gonna
fast-forward through so you can see what
I'm doing without getting kind of a
long-winded explanation I'm essentially
doing the exact same thing I'm gonna
drop two filters in here and I'm gonna
bring the exposure down to help us
isolate that subject even more
this last graduated filter is going to
do the opposite effect of the other
three we are going to brighten up the
top piece of this photo right here to
kind of enhance that foggy that overcast
look that we're going for I'm going to
show you how to do that first I'm going
to check and make sure I got this pulled
down far enough by selecting the mask
overlay once again now here's what I'm
gonna do I'm gonna bring my whites and
my highlights up to brighten up this sky
right here bring those highlights to
right about there I think that looks
pretty good
I'm gonna bring these whites up as well
I think that looks good and now I'm
gonna bring my clarity down quite a bit
to enhance this foggy kind of not clear
look I guess you would get on a rainy
day like this so I'm gonna bring the
clarity down to right about there I
think that looks pretty good
so we'll go ahead and call that and like
I said earlier we can always come back
and adjust these filters later once
we're done with the complete edit so now
we're on to the last step of this edit
going in and refining the photo taking
out anything that we might think is
distracting maybe making some changes to
adjustments we made earlier on the edit
now that we're all the way through so
let's wrap this thing up one thing I
might do is move some of these
distractions so I'm gonna go ahead and
click the clone stamp tool and I'm gonna
clone out a few different things on this
image this light post right here do not
like the way that light looks I'm gonna
go ahead and clone this one out as well
and I'm also going to clone out these
marks in the bottom left corner notice
this little reflection right here that's
unnecessary and these lines right here
are also unnecessary for the sake of
today's example I'm gonna go ahead and
say I'm done I'm cool with that I would
go in and I digest these more
accordingly make sure they're perfectly
done but for the sake of today's example
we're just gonna pretend like that looks
perfect to speed things up and there we
go that is it for this edit like I said
remember this was just like a rough
draft for me I'm just going through
showing you guys how I would get to
probably like 80% at this point in the
editing I would go back in and really
start refining all these adjustments
that I made to make sure that it looks
natural and it looks as perfect as it
can
but with that being said I hope you can
take these techniques apply them to your
own photography and improve your edits
improve your black and white photos if
you enjoyed the video do me a solid hit
that thumbs up drop a comment and make
sure you subscribe for more photography
videos I really appreciate you guys
watching if you have not checked out the
behind the scenes of how this photo was
made to make sure you do that was the
last video yeah really appreciate you
guys watching I'll see you next time
[Music]
