Mike DelGaudio

Picasa offers a variety of ways to create good black and white images from a color image. Some digital cameras only take color images (my Nikon D70 comes to mind), others take black and whites, but you can’t get filters onto most point and shoots.

So, if you want to create nice back and white photos your answer is to make a color image black and white in “post processing” – Picasa to the rescue.

For this tutorial you will need Picasa from Google.. Good news: it’s free!

Lets use this image as our original to see how it looks in different back and white renderings.

Choose a picture from your Picasa library, and go to the photo detail view by double clicking the image. Then click the “Effects” Tab.

1. Plain old B&W
Picasa offers an out-of the box Black and white mode. From the full color iamge Click the “B&W” effect.

2. Filtered B&W
Picasa can simulate the effect of adding a colored lens filter to the camera as the picture was taken. Filters allow you to allow/prevent certain colors from reaching the film. Picasa shows a number of standard filters, and allows you to custom select a filter from a wide range of tones. From the full color image select “Filtered B&W” then click “Pick a color” And select one of the swatches from the top, or from the color chart that appears.

For example, you can simulate the effect of adding a Green Filter to the Camera lens

Generally speaking, a Green filter is good to enhance detail in landscape / nature pictures. When used in portraits, you’ll find that a green filter accentuates freckles and skin blemishes, making them stand out. Blue irises look very bright and detailed.

You can simulate adding a Red filter to the lens:

Red filters do a great job of hiding skin blemishes and give skin a very even tone. Maybe too even, as red filters can give almost a ghostly appearance. Red filters also make the irises on blue eyed people nearly black.

Here is an example of a blue filter. It is similar to a green filter, but even less flattering to skin tones.

Here is an example of a blue filter applied. Notice that the eyes are bright, but can be very unforgiving to skin, and can be used if you really want to accentuate weathering or skin texture.

On the other hand, a Yellow filter is very flattering to skin and not as ghostly as a red filter. If you want to get good, smooth skin tones that the subject will be happy with, choose a filter in the yellow to orange range.

There are a whole range of tones you can use as filters, even more than are found in ACTUAL lens filters. Try exploring around with the eye dropper over the “pick a color” color chart.

3. Focal black and white, or a “Cutout”

Picasa allows you to select just a portion of your image to remain in full color. Sometimes this is referred to a “Cutout” in photoshop terms. In this case, we can choose a circular cutout, with a hard-or soft (called a feathered” edge.)

From your full color image, select “Focal B&W” then click on the image to move the crosshairs to the location you want to remain in color. Then adjust the size and sharpness slider to obtain the desired effect.

The Focal B&W filter will help turn your attention to a specific portion of your image – the part that is in color.

4. Using White tint.

You can also get a black and white image using the “Tint” effect. Click “Tint” then “Pick a Color” then select the white swatch (top row, fifth from the left.)

Personally I think this is the best effect and offers higher contrast from the other black and white images. Notice that tinting with white makes skin tones brighter – closer to white without overbrightening. Some people prefer a more contrasty image, especially in black and white images. Since your typical photo taken in auto mode won’t create a high contrast image, here is how you can boost the effect in Picasa.

With the Full color image selected, click the “Tuning“ tab. And bring up the Histogram by clicking the little “propellerhead” button

Then drag the Highlights and Shadows button to the right until the brights are bright and the darks are dark without letting detail fall of either end of the histogram.
(See my “Correcting Exposure by using a Histogram” tutorial for more detail on this)

Notice how this image is adjusted and has high tonal separation The darks are dark, but there are bright highlights in the cheeks and forehead.

Now, return to the “Effects” tab and Choose “Tint” with the white swatch selected.

Notice how this really separates the faces from the background. A lot more so than the straight back and white filter. This is really good for landscapes and bringing out architectural details on intricate buildings.

Since most buildings are just flat gray cement, the default B&W filter will give uninteresting images, but by increasing the difference between highlight and shadow you can really bring out the detail and make an image pop.

5. Desaturation

From the full color image, click the “Saturation” effect and slide the slider all the way to the left.

Desaturation is another way to get the same effect as the plan b&w filter. Often you’ll see Photoshop tutorials that tell you to desaturate a picture rather than to convert to gray scale so that you can retain the color information, just not show it.

Bonus

While that on it’s own is useful it brings us to the “bonus”. And that’s to create an “Almost Back and White” image.

You can stop just short of full back and white and get a nice effect with partial desaturation. Often this effect will make a photo seem old, and are sometimes described as “sentimental”.

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. If you did, please let others know by digging it, or bookmarking in del.icio.us, won’t you? I would also love to hear your feedback in the comments.