FOUR ESSENTIAL TRICKS

Enhance your monochrome shots with these techniques

1 Change the tonal mix

The easiest way to alter the tonal balance of your conversion is to use the

Tonal Mix controls. These allow you to fine-tune the tone of each individual colour in your image, making them lighter or darker. If you want to darken a blue sky simply drag the blue (and Aqua) sliders to the left. Watch out for ‘haloes’ appearing around subjects of different colours, though, particularly if you use the strongest slider settings.

2 Fine-tun e the white balance

It may sound counter-intuitive, but you can alter the tones in your conversion by adjusting the White Balance and Tint controls once you have adjusted the Tonal Mix controls. For example, if you have lightened the yellows and darkened the blues in the Tonal Mix, you can fine-tune the effect by dragging the slider to the right to lighten the overall tone of the image, or darken it by dragging it to the left.

3 Add a Graduated Filter

The Graduated Filter in Lightroom is a quick and easy way to lighten, darken or adjust the contrast of large areas of the image. Simply select it from the toolbar, and drag it over your image. You can then adjust the exposure, highlights, shadows and contrast to achieve the result that you want. As it’s non-destructive, you can go back and re-adjust the position and the sliders at any point to fine-tune the effect.

4 Post-crop vignetting and Grain

These two controls in the Effects tab at the bottom of the panels are great for black-and-white conversions. Post-Crop Vignetting allows you to darken or lighten the outer corners of the image. This is perfect for concentrating the viewer’s attention on the central area of the subject. The Grain effect is useful for adding a film-like grain effect to give a grittier, rougher look to your black-and-white conversion.