M E G A P I X E L . R O: Channel Mixer Method

Step 1. CHOOSE THE CHANNEL MIXER ADJUSTMENT LAYER

Open the color photo you want to convert to black and white. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Channel Mixer from the pop-up menu (as shown here).

Step 2. TURN ON THE MONOCHROME CHECKBOX

When the Channel Mixer dialog appears, turn on the Monochrome checkbox (at the bottom left corner of the dialog) so your adjustments create a black-and-white image (rather than just messing around with the colors in your color image). The default conversion pushes the Red to 100%, while the Green and Blue are set to 0%. Sadly, this doesn't create a very compelling black-and-white image, so you have to do a little adjusting on your own (as you'll see in the next step).

Step 3. ADJUST THE RED, GREEN, BLUE, AND CONSTANT SLIDERS FOR MAXIMUM CONTRAST

I've come up with a formula that I use for most of my own photos that seems to work well for me. I lower the Red amount to +75%, then I drag the Green and Blue sliders to the right to create as much contrast as possible without blowing out the highlights in the photo. To help create that extra contrast, I usually lower the Constant to -12%, which darkens the overall image, giving me a little more room to play with the sliders. Although you'll hear Photoshop instructors preaching that these numbers must add up to 100%, I'm more concerned with how the image prints. If the print looks great, but the numbers add up to 116%, really… who cares? However, you're not done quite yet.

Step 4. TO REPAIR BLOWN-OUT AREAS, CLICK ON THE BACKGROUND LAYER ANDDESATURATE

In the previous step, I mentioned that you want to increase the contrast without blowing out the highlights. It's harder to do that than it sounds, but here's a trick you can use to help save your highlights. Go ahead and move the sliders until the photo looks really contrasty, even if some of the highlights have blown out (they've turned totally white) as they have here in the bamboo rods. Then go to the Layers palette, click on the Background layer (as shown here), then press Command-Shift-U (PC: Control-Shift-U) to remove the color from the Background layer.

Step 5 . CLICK BACK ON THE CHANNEL MIXER ADJUSTMENT LAYER, PAINT IN BLACK OVER BLOWN-OUT AREAS

Now, in the Layers palette, click back on the Channel Mixer adjustment layer. The bonus of using an adjustment layer is that it comes with its own mask, so to hide those blown-out areas from view, just press D to set your Foreground color to black, get the Brush tool (B) choosing a medium-sized, soft-edged brush, and paint right over the blown-out areas of the bamboo poles (as shown here). What you're doing is hiding the blown-out areas and revealing the Background layer, which you just desaturated in the previous step, and which doesn't have any blown-out areas. So, you get the best of both worlds: the high contrast rocks, water, and background, but you save your highlights by hiding them behind the mask.

Step 6. BEFORE & AFTER: WITHOUT BLOWING OUT THE HIGHLIGHTS

Here's a before & after showing the flat, lifeless conversion on the top, and the high-contrast Channel Mixer version on the bottom, but without losing the highlights because we masked them away in the previous step.