Canon software
Use filters in Canon’s DPP4 to lighten or darken specific colours and make different objects stand out
Canon’s Digital Photo Professional + EOS Utility
01 BASIC PALETTE
All the tools you need for a striking mono conversion are accessible in the Basic image-editing palette.
02 PICTURE STYLE
Click this drop-down menu to access the Monochrome picture style. This instantly desaturates the image, but it’s unlikely that this will give you the best black-and-white conversion.
03 GAMMA
Drag this bar left to lighten a shot’s midtones. This tool uses a tone curve to remap the original midtone input levels and give them a brighter output level. The vertical dashed line indicates the original gamma settings of the shot’s midtones. Dragging the bar right will darken the midtones.
04 CONTRAST
An effective mono conversion should have some black shadows and white highlights, or you’ll end up with just a drab wash of mid-greys. Drag this slider right to create darker shadows and whiter highlights – check out our step-by-step walkthrough for more.
05 SHADOW AND HIGHLIGHT
The Shadow slider enables you to selectively lighten shadows and midtones in your mono image to recover detail, and the Highlight slider pulls back highlight detail.
06 FILTER EFFECT
This menu is the key to effective monochrome conversions. Each filter setting lightens or darkens the greyscale tones corresponding to particular colours in the original image. By experimenting with various effects you can make specific objects stand out – for example, the Red filter darkens the blue backdrop and lightens the red and yellow peppers, making them stand out in contrast with darker tones in the shot.
07 TONING
This dropdown menu enables you to add a subtle wash of colour to your monochrome conversion. A hint of sepia gives a warm retro print look to our subject, while a wash of blue can make a landscape look more bleak and moody overall feel to the shot.
08 SAVE
After applying a particular filter, click Save to export the image as a JPEG. You can then try different filters and build up a collection of different mono versions of the same image.