how t o Make pro-looking black and white in MaxCurve

1 Make a duplicate Although you can undo edits in Photos by tapping Edit followed by Revert, it’s a good idea to create a duplicate before making dramatic changes to an image. To do this, select the image in Photos and tap the Share icon at the top of the screen before tapping the duplicate option at the bottom of the screen. 2 Why use a curve? There are lots of apps that convert a color image to monochrome, but few give you any control over how the conversion is made. MaxCurve gives you the type of control that professional photographers demand, allowing you to adjust the brightness and mix of the colors that make up the scene. 3 Make it mono After opening MaxCurve, tap the sun icon to access the “Lightness Kit.” Scroll down to the bottom of the column of graphs on the left and tap on the Black&White graph to make a basic conversion and turn the shot monochrome. The larger graph will now show colored peaks that represent the colors that make up the original scene. 4 Bend the line You now have control over the brightness of the areas of each color. To darken the reds as we have here, just tap the line near the red peak in the histogram and drag it down. Areas in cyan (red’s opposite color) will stay at their original brightness but areas in-between will be adjusted a little. 5 Shape the curve Wherever you tap on the line (aka curve) of the graph, you create a new control point that you can drag up to brighten corresponding colors, or down to darken them. Experiment with adding points and dragging them. To delete a point, tap it and hit the Trash icon. Use the Undo button to cancel unwanted adjustments. 6 Tweak the contrast If the image needs an adjustment to the contrast, scroll up in the graph column (on iPhone, tap the grid icon for the graph list) and select Contrast. Unlike most contrast controls, this lets you target areas of specific brightness. Raising the right end of the curve increases the contrast of the highlights; the left end increases shadows.