Make a Black and White more interesting

[AtlanaAnna]

I've cleaned up the tears and paper flaws but would like to make this picture a little more interesting. Any suggestions?

[Tony W]

Is there anymore detail in the shirts in the original?
Add a sky with a few clouds maybe?

[AtlanaAnna]

No more detail available. I've darkened it a little more with curves. Maybe I could add a sepia layer. I've been looking for that tool and can't remember where it is.

[John Wheeler]

Hi AtlanaAnna

I like Tony's suggestions.
In addition, I tried a different cropping and adding a PhotoFilter with the color of your choice (sepia as you mentioned is one option):

Shirley-Griffin-standing-weSFW.jpg

[AtlanaAnna]

Hello John! Have you ever heard of Falcon by chance? I really like your rendition. I had considered cropping and I like it now that I see it. Can you remind me where to find the sepia affects? Thank you!

[Tony W]

Just a try to show what I meant about sky and also added Sepia effect

[AtlanaAnna]

Wow! Very nice! I love it!

[AtlanaAnna]

I'm plowing through the 'Help' files and still don't see where to add the sepia affect.

[John Wheeler]

Nice job on the clouds Tony

AtlanaAnna, here is the screen shot that I used to add the sepia. I just added a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer, picked a color I liked, turned off preserve Luminosity, and adjusted the density to taste. All versions of Photoshop that I can remember have this adjustment Layer. The same effect can be achieved with a Curves or Levels Adjustment Layer as well yet a little more cumbersome because to get the color you want you need to tweak in the RGB portions individually.

Falcon? Not off hand.

Screen-shot-2011-12-08-at-4.21SFW.jpg

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by AtlanaAnna

I'm plowing through the 'Help' files and still don't see where to add the sepia affect.

You will find the Sepia in the Actions Pallette. This particular one is fairly close to a real sepia tone you would get if your print was on Bromide (cold tone) paper, the actual density would increase the longer the print immersed in the toner. Chloro Bromide papers produced a similar but much warmer tone in the sepia bath

Thanks John

[AtlanaAnna]

I found 'Sepia Toning' under the actions tab but what do I do with it?

[AtlanaAnna]

John, where do I find the Photo filter?

[John Wheeler]

Hi AtlanaAnna

For running the Sepia Action, it will create a new Layer that is a merged image of all visible Layers, desaturated, and then sepia toned.
- Click on a Layer in the Layers panel, The merged layer I believe will be placed above that Layer
- Highlight the Action as shown below
- Click on the Right Arrow at the bottom of the Actions panel

The Action should take a few second to run and leave you with a new Layer toned sepia. This provides a result very similar to the Photo Filter yet with the preserve Luminosity turned on. Here is the image that shows the different panels:

Screen-shot-2011-12-08-at-8.21.jpg

The Photo Filter is a little misleading name. It is actually an Adjustment Layer. Here is an image that shows how to add that Adjustment Layer into your Layer Stack:

Screen shot 2011-12-08 at 8.12.54 PM.png

Hope that helps.

[AtlanaAnna]

Photo Filter isn't in my menu under New Adjustment Layer.. Nothing seems to happen when I click on Sepia Toning. Some concepts with Photoshop seem so abstract that it's really hard for me to get some of this by description only. I wish I had someone present actually showing me this stuff. I think it's hard to have to figure it out on my own.....

[John Wheeler]

Hi AtlanaAnna

What version of Photoshop are you using? Photoshop Elements? And if yes, then what version of Photoshop Elements. That might explain some differences.

I am using Photoshop CS5.

[John Wheeler]

I saw a typo in one of my previous posts that may have been confusing (I fixed it).

For the Actions, after selecting the Sepia action (highlight it) then you click on the right "arrow" at the bottom of the Action panel:

Screen-shot-2011-12-08-at-9.17SFW.jpg

In addition, Photoshop can have at the bottom at each menu one line that says "Show All Menu Items." Click on that and the rest of the options should show up.

Again, I am assuming that you are using some version of Photoshop CSX

[frankecu77]

Here is a nice B&W enhanced picture made with Nik Color Effex Pro.

[aartist]

A farm family from the 40's.
Don't loose the car, as it was one of my points of interest.

This photo says many things on many different levels.
It is very historical!

[Chain]

Personally I use "Gradient Map" instead of "Photo Filter" as it lets me pick different colours/tints for e.g. shadows and highlights (my last image is just to illustrate this). A bit more complex, but gives more possibilities.

To only affect Color set blending mode to Color. You can add a Curves/Levels layer below it and make the white point a light gray if you want to keep the internal brightness distribution (any better way of saying this?) in the image as intact as possible yet not have pure whites (you can also do the same for blacks). :=)

The colours are just limited by our imagination here, so what colour tint would quality photos made in the 40s have when they were new? A silvery/blueish tint? Brown/sephia? I think this would make a nice target to aim for...

[Cupcake]

I like this idea.

[MarthasDarkroom]

Chain's 4th image looks nice, a nice subtle blue is a great colour to tint images, can be more interesting than boring old sepia. I think the original was fine enough, probably just needed in that sky like some cloudage which Tony W illustrated.

A quick way to tint is using the Variations under adjustments although you'll get a similar result with the above methods too.