B/W Conversions

just tried andrew and i dont quite get what your saying :

Sorry Emma,

I'll try again... better at teaching English Lit than Photoshop! (Actually, not much good at that at the moment!)

Display the image in colour.
Open Layers pallet.
make adjustment layer Type Hue/saturation
make another just the same

You now have three layers (including your original)

Change the blend of the middle layer to mode "Color"
Click on the top layer and set hue 0, saturation -100, lightness 0

This should make the main image grey scale but a bit boring.

Now click on the middle adjustment layer and use the hue slider, moving it back and forth. You should note the changes and get it just as you want it.

Fine tune using saturation.

Finally flatten all layers.

I do hope this works: it's so simple yet capable of very accurate tonal work.

Kind regards,

Andrew

ok after a play around tried both now and andrew your way does seem more complicated but as you said more accurate and less grainy i shall play with them both more though see which one i prefer thankyou for your help

Emma,

It's only initially more complicated: as I say, set up and record an ACTION and you're just one click away from a conversion each time!

Best wishes,

Andrew

P.S. you must get out and shoot some of the coastal wetlands near you. Saw a great nature programme on the area a couple of weeks ago and it looks fabulous! Almost as good as Somerset...

was that the programme on rainham marshes if so i go there quite alot lovely place and how do you set up action please

Yes, that was the one. In which case you must have taken lots of photos already, Emma. How about posting some in the gallery, or the Your Photos forum? I'd love to see them. The programme was so lyrical it made me want to go there!

As for actions, I'm assuming that PS Elements has this facility. If you're not sure, check with someone like Kris or Stefan, they'll know. I've never used it.

You could have a look under Window at the top of the screen: if it's available it will be listed along with things like History and Channels. If you click on Actions it'll appear in the top right hand corner (that's how my early 19th century version of Photoshop CS works, any way.

You RECORD an action by clicking the circular button at the botton of the ACTIONS pallet, then follow my instructions by working on a photo. When you're finished click on the SQUARE symbol. Give the action a name and it'll be saved, ready to play automatically whenever. If you make a mistake just delete and start again.

Hope this works for you!

Best regards,

Andrew

i will put some images up soon Andrew anyway i have just had a look and dont look like i have theactions command

No, Elements doesn't support actions, as far as I know, or at least you can't create them using Elements.

That programme was (I assume) 'Wild Places of Essex' by Robert Macfarlane, and it was taken from his book The Wild Places, which is a nice read. Try anything by Roger Deakin too, a big influence on MacFarlane.

I've always found Rainham Marshes a bit flat for my liking, as far as photos are concerned, I prefer somewhere with more trees, and a bit of contour. Good place for shots of Water Voles though, not that I've ever got any there.

Dan

It seems you can link or at least use them.

Emma, I can make it into an action for you with Photoshop CS4, I don't have Elements and never used it so can't try it out or know if it works or not.

OK, Stefan,

I did a quick look at the link you gave. Apparently the instructions are for the PC versions of PSE. Unfortunately, certain features of PSE in the PC version are not carried over to the Mac version, i.e. there is no Mac equivalent to versions 5 or 7. I noticed that in comparing the different versions of PSE since version 4. I can not speak for any certainty regarding version 8 in both versions since I have not upgraded yet on either platform.

The Photomonk

Thank you Photomonk.
It seems that in Elements 8, actions are build in, in both versions link link

Thanks Stefan,

Possibly a reason to upgrade on both platforms, though personally, i have never found a need for this feature.

The Photomonk

Photomunk I do have some actions in Photoshop, one is a sharpening from Matt, then some tweaks of my own and some black and white conversions to get an certain look.
I also have pre-sets for Lightroom, it's almost the some as actions in Photoshop.
it just makes everything go faster and I use it as short cuts to get an image close to what I want it to look. It can be very helpful.

So elements 6 does not have actions but elements 8 does correct:

It would seem that way. I have Elements 4 and that definitely doesn't!

If you don't want to spend out on a new version of Elements just yet, how about this free work-around.

Download this PSD file, and save to your desktop. Now, every time you want to do this B&W conversion, just double-click the 'Actions.psd' file and it will open up in Elements. Then open the image you want to work on, view the two images at the same time using Window>Images>Tile from the menu bar.

Then just select the two adjustment layers from the 'Actions' image and drag them onto the image you want to play with, and then adjust them as necessary.

Does that make sense?

Dan