ClipArt Video

Copyright © 2006 Peter Horner

Most images were produced in black and white for nearly a hundred years after the invention of photography, but now colour images have become commonplace. Creating strong three dimensional images on a piece of paper is one of the best attributes of black and white photography, as the effect can be more striking than with a colour photograph. Without the colour to distract us we become more aware of the subtle tones which can be found within a black and white image. In this article I will share the technique I use that will help you create beautiful, striking and moody black and white images from your colour photographs.

Digital cameras have a black and white mode but more information and detail will be recorded in colour, which will also create a higher quality printed image. This is why I always shoot in colour then convert images later. There are several ways of converting an image to black and white using Photoshop and many other image editing programs. You could simply desaturate the colours, but creating a black and white image with real tone and definition goes beyond this. Levels, curves and the Unsharp Mask can be used creatively with black and white conversion to provide further control over tones and contrast to create a stunning image.

Channel Mixer – I have found that using the Photoshop Channel Mixer is the easiest way to convert an image to black and white and produces the best results. The Channel Mixer allows you to control how much red, green and blue contribute to the final monochrome image.

The Channel Mixer can be selected from the adjustment layer popup menu in the layers palette or you can also access it from under the image menu.

Clicking on the left tick box entitled Monochrome will convert your photograph into a greyscale image, and gives you the ability to blend the red, green and blue channels. Adjust each of the sliders to produce an image to your liking. As a rule make sure that the total values for each channel adds up to 100%. This creates monochrome images that are the equivalent of ones shot on black and white film through red, green or blue filters. For example if you wanted to maximize cloud contrast in a blue sky, then a red filter would achieve this. I usually set the red channel to 0 and the green channel to 100 to cut down on the amount of noise, or sometimes a combination of red and green depending on the image.

Curves and Levels – Brightness and contrast can be adjusted in Photoshop by using the curves and levels tools, which can be found under Image > Adjustments Curves/Levels. Both curves and levels allow you to adjust the tonal range of an image. When using the levels command you can make adjustments to just three variables, highlights, shadows and midtones. I prefer to use curves as it gives you more precision. With curves you can adjust any point along a scale while keeping up to 15 other values constant. By adjusting the black point and white point in curves you can give your image more contrast. At opposite ends of the diagonal line you will find a small dot. When you grab hold one of the dots with your mouse and drag it around you will see the image change. To create more contrast drag the black point lower and the white point higher, so that either end of the diagonal line is curved. Practice using curves and levels and explore the different effects you can achieve with your images.

Unsharp Mask – The Unsharp Mask is my preferred tool for sharpening images, which can be found under Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. It is a traditional film compositing technique used to sharpen edges in an image and corrects blurring. The Unsharp Mask locates pixels that differ from surrounding pixels by the threshold you specify and increases the pixels’ contrast by the amount you specify. In order to get the look which I desire in my images I use the Unsharp Mask twice. I begin by using a high radius and lower amount, such as a radius of 50 pixels and an amount of 30%. This gives the image a much more intense look and details will stand out. The second time I use a lower radius of 1 pixel with a higher amount of 30%, which will correct any blurring and sharpen the image.

Visit this page to view examples of images created using a combination of these techniques – Black and White Conversion Example Photos

Bookmark To

Having merely a web presence is not sufficient! A successful web presence brings along the right mix of strategy and a reflection of your business practices to convey your message to the visitor. For the better performance of a website not only an appealing design is required but also its user-friendliness matters. It is also seen that the World Wide Web is becoming advanced with more sophisticated introduced day by day. Even the browsers are improved to a great extent with more and more features added to it.

To make a website easily visible and popular, making it browser compatible is very important. For this PSD to XHTML conversion is one of the most vital elements of Web designing. Its growing importance in the designing cannot be completely annulled. With the increasing competition among the web marketers, the importance of a good design with better usability has become the necessity of the present time.

PSD is used for Photoshop design. PSD files are the design files which web designers prepare for any respective site to put on. These files are mere pictures or the imitations of one’s creative thinking. They are the stills as they lack any movement and usability. After designers pass their piece of architecture to web developers, these pictures get life and they start their assigned functionalities.

The conversion of digital images (e.g., prepared as Adobe Photoshop .psd files) into XHTML/CSS markups is a necessary phase of most web development projects. As a stand-alone service design-to-XHTML slicing emerged a few years ago. Its appearance was the market response to increasingly growing requirements to quality of XHTML/CSS code, its compliance with WWW Consortium (W3C) standards and browser compatibility.

PSD-to-XHTML service is quite simple and easy to deal. Using Adobe Photoshop or other software packages, graphic and web designers create digital images — files with *.PSD, etc extensions. To convert them into a webpage template or blog theme, you need to develop HTML code.

The competition forces PSD-to-HTML service providers to develop XHTML/CSS code in line with the latest Web trends. PSD-to-HTML services help to make web development faster and easier, allowing designers and back-end programmers to concentrate on their specific tasks. And this benefits the entire internet World!

Apart from professional web Development Company, Biztech Consultancy also has expertise in providing services such as , PSD to XHTML , PSD to HTML /CSS conversion service and PSD Slicing services.

Bookmark To

The era of information technology has brought abundant information on various subjects. Man has invented and created many ways and means to utilize this information as knowledge. This knowledge is skillfully utilized by man to his advantage. Using advanced and modified computer applications is one of the ways to manage information skillfully. There are many applications like Word, Excel or PDF and much more. Out of all PDF is the widely used application due to its modified features and functionality. PDF is a non-editable format and often users may require converting the document from one format to another. Therefore, document conversion plays an important role to make the task of the user easy and smooth.

The computer users mainly present information in Word or PDF documents. Word document integrates the whole information in editable format. You can make use of various fonts, graphics, images, clip-art and other such features. A person can also incorporate hyperlinks and bookmarks to provide additional information in the document. There are times when you require converting the Word document to other file formats like PDF. A PDF file format presents any kind of information in a professional manner. It also supports multimedia elements. These multimedia elements are video, audio and animation. One can make use of these elements to make the document more visually appealing and emphatic. It also equips the user with security features. You can protect the PDF file from unauthorized printing, editing, copying or viewing. Therefore, one can keep the confidential information secure and intact from being hampered or misused. You can convert the editable documents to PDF files with the help of various tools and techniques. One can also make necessary changes in the non-editable PDF files by converting this file into editable file format.

There are advanced PDF converter tools available to ease and smooth the process of conversion. These tools convert the PDF files to Word, Excel, Power Point or Postscript and vice versa. There are many other ways and techniques to convert your documents from one format to another. You can search for these methods in the Internet.

Bookmark To