Today’s photo editing challenge is all about making a color image black and white. You’ll learn how to do a black and white conversion and what you’ll need to know to create different looks.
You will learn the right and wrong way to do b/w conversions and a few other tips. Your challenge is to produce a nice black and white from the image provided today.
Photography Challenge Themes for the Week
Over the course of this 7-day photography challenge, we’ll be working with these photography themes and practice these editing techniques:
- Street photography – learn about basic edits like contrast and color adjustments and how to apply a Look or preset.
- Portrait and people photography – learn how to do skin retouching and facial enhancements the easy way, and keep it looking natural.
- Black and white conversion – see how to do it the right and wrong way, and how to take your b/w images to another creative level with split toning.
- Details and masking – you’ll learn how to do local edits that apply to just part of the image, and how to enhance sharpness and detail in those targeted areas.
- Landscape photography – take your nature photos up a notch, bring out details in highlight and shadows areas, and see how to replace the sky (not everyone’s cup of tea but you’ll see how easy it is with Luminar 4).
- Texture overlay – learn how to give your images a fine art style with a texture overlay (you’ll even get a few of mine to play with and try out)
- Night photography – learn how to apply many of the techniques you already learned and bring it all together to enhance and bring out details in a stunning night photo I took in Japan.
Step 1 – Download the RAW image
Raw Image File to Process
If you subscribed to join the challenge, you’ll have been sent the RAW file to edit in the email for this challenge. If you’d like the file to process, simply join the challenge here.
Step 2 – Photo Editing Software
You’ll need some form of photo editing software in order to follow along with this challenge. I’m using Lightroom and Luminar 4 Software by Skylum (#aff) in the example videos for the challenge. If you’re already using some sort of photo editing software to process your images, you will be able to do this just fine.
If you’d like to do the challenge using the same software I’m using, you can download a free trial of Luminar 4 for Mac or PC (#aff) and try it out for 7 days.
I’m a Skylum Ambassador, as well as an affiliate partner with them. If you choose to purchase the software after the trial expires, I earn a small commission. There is no extra charge to you. I reviewed over 10 editors recently, and I concluded that Luminar was one of the best photo editing programs for beginners. I recommend it because I’m confident you’ll come to love it.
Use this discount code to save $10 USD off the regular purchase price (must be entered exactly, no spaces): DIGITALPHOTOMENTOR.
7-Day Trial: Luminar 4 (#aff) to get it just go to the Luminar pull-down menu at the top of the page and choose “Download trial”.
Step 3 – watch the video tutorial
Next, watch the video below and follow along if you want. Feel free to pause if you need to, or rewind and watch any parts again. If you have any questions just leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
7-Day Photography Challenge
You’re reading one of a seven-part photography challenge on photo editing. To follow along with this 7-day photography challenge, enter your email address here.
You’ll be sent a daily email with a new editing challenge, and have access to my RAW files to work with so you can follow along.
Join: 7-Day Editing Challenge
Step 4 – Process the image
Now it’s your turn!
Open the image in your software of choice and give it a go. Have some fun with it, but remember to not go overboard.
Experiment and play around with different filters and sliders, and try some of the built-in Looks that come with Luminar 4. Here are two more variations I made of this image.
You can see how different you can make your black and white image by doing the conversion the right way! You can take control of the tones and how each color is represented in monochrome.
You get to decide how it looks!
Step 5 – Share your finished image
Lastly, we want to see what you’ve created – your final finished version (or a few of them).
Use the commenting system on the bottom of this page to share your image, how you did it, and any experiences you had while doing the challenge.
Conclusion
There are 7 days of practical action taking steps in this photography challenge.
Join and follow along and you’ll find you get more confident each and every day. By spending some time each and every day practicing editing your photos, you’ll find your friends and family starting to say “WOW, that’s a great photo!”
Cheers,
