WARNING: This challenge and Luminar 4 are both outdated and obsolete. A better option is to do my newest, most up-to-date photo editing challenge HERE!

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.

New Challenge for 2021: With the launch of Luminar AI, we’ve created a brand new 5-day challenge using its amazing artificial intelligence features. Luminar AI has a free 7-day trial available (I provide that for you), which will allow you to follow along with the NEW video tutorials. If you’re new to photo editing, I recommend you take on the 5-day challenge.

If you already own Luminar 4, you can still do this challenge and practice while improving your editing skills.

Cuba Jan14 1621 before — Before editing, as it appeared out of the camera.

Cuba Jan14 1621 after6 — Here is the final black and white sepia (brown tone) image done using the Split Tone filter.

Photography Challenge Themes for the Week

Over the course of this 7-day photography challenge, we’ll be working with these photography themes and practicing 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.

AI Photo Editing: Read my review of Luminar Neo, the next generation photo editing using AI. It’s an industry game changer. If you’ve already got it, enrolling in my Luminar Neo course should be able to get you up and editing in days instead of weeks. Check it out.

Step 1 – Photo Editing Software

You’ll need to have a copy of Luminar 4 photo editing software already installed.

Step 2 – 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.

Step 3 – 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.

Cuba Jan14 1621 after2 — Notice how the sky is darker here and the buildings are lighter. This was done by simply pulling the saturation slider to -100. This is the WRONG way to do b/w conversion because you have no control over the tones in the image and how each color is converted.

Cuba Jan14 1621 after3 — This is a variation with dark buildings and lighter sky that you can do using the color sliders in the b/w panel. The software knows what color was in the original image and you can use that to adjust the tones of your b/w image.

Cuba Jan14 1621 after4 — Here’s yet another variation with light buildings and a really dramatic darkened sky.

Cuba Jan14 1621 after5 — Finally, this one has a split-tone applied to it with a blue tint in the shadows, and a yellow tint in the highlights.

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!

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.

More Photography Challenges: check out our entire collection of photography challenges. You’ll find our daily and monthly challenges with lots of ideas and inspiration for creative photos. Perfect for beginners or experienced alike.

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,

Photo Editing Challenge Day 3 Black and White Conversion