DonT's BW Workflow

[DonT]

First attempt at writing down my workflow and thoughts. This tutorial is not as polished as others you will find here but maybe I can refine it over time.

First steps
Duplicate the Background Layer 6 times

Rename the labels the layers so they look like this from the bottom up so we can keep track of where we are in the workflow;

Background Copy - Shadow Sharpening
Background Copy 2 - Highlight Sharpening
Background Copy 3 - Color Tone Adj
Background Copy 4 - Shadow Layer Adj
Background Copy 5 - Highlight Layer Adj
Background Copy 6 - Working Layer
Background Layer - Original Layer

Highlights Adjustment

(The goal of this section is bring out some of the detail normally lost in the editing workflow by toning down the highlight some.)

Turn on the visibility for the "Working Layer" and " Highlight Layer Adj" layers only at this point.

Select the layer " Highlight Layer Adj " and press Ctrl+Alt+2. This selects the highlights.

(I did not find a good explanation on what this shortcut key selection is actually selecting so I can't go in to any detail. Maybe someone can explain that or better yet, a method to select a tonal ranges by percentage, 10%, 20% ... I remember there was a shortcut on older versions of Photoshop to do that.)

Press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection

Press Delete to delete the shadows now selected

Press Ctrl+D to clear the selection

Select a blending mode of "Color Burn".

(Now this is where your creativity starts in the workflow. Go to the blending and select the first option which is Normal. Now use you your cursor keys to step through each one so you can see the changes on the highlights. Don't worry about strength of the effect yet. The goal is find a blend mode that will bring out the detail. Typically I end up with Color Burn.)

Now adjust the Opacity slider, I end up between 10-30% depending on the image.

Shadow Adjustment

(The goal of this section is bring out some of the detail normally lost in the editing workflow by brightening up the shadow detail. The same steps as before, but the selection to delete is the highlights. So please forgive the cut paste of the same verbiage.)

Leave the visibility on for the "Working Layer" and " Highlight Layer Adj" layers and now turn on the visibility for "Shadow Layer Adj".

Select the layer "Shadow Layer Adj " and press Ctrl+Alt+2. This selects the highlights.

(I did not find a good explanation on what this shortcut key selection is actually selecting so I can't go in to any detail. Maybe someone can explain that or better yet, a method to select a tonal ranges by percentage, 10%, 20% ... I remember there was a shortcut to do that.)

We will not be inverting the selection this time.

Press Delete to delete the highlights selected

Press Ctrl+D to clear the selection

Select a blending mode of "Color Dodge".

(Now this is where your creativity starts in the workflow. Go to the blending and select the first option which is Normal. Now use you your cursor keys to step through each one so you can see the changes on the highlights. Don't worry about strength of the effect yet. The goal is find a blend mode that will bring out the detail. Typically I end up with Color Dodge or Overlay.)

Now adjust the Opacity slider, I end up between 10-30% depending on the image.

Color Tone

(This may not be the right name for this section, but I had to call it something. You will notice that some desideration occurs at 100% Opacity in the Blending mode and the images can get a little gritty looking. Sometime I like the effect and will keep the Opacity high or I will add noise to layer as well and lower the opacity to control the effect. Again it depends on the image and effect you like. On some images with fine color gradients I will skip this step. Since it can cause banding to occur in the gradients.)

Turn on the visibility for the " Color Tone Adj " layer. If you haven't figured it out, we will continue to turn on each layer as we proceed up the stack.

Select the "Color Tone Adj" layer.

Convert to BW using the menu Image, Adjustments, Black and White. Or you can use the shortcut keys Alt+Ctrl+Shift+B. Just use the default for now.
Select a blending mode of "Overlay".

(Now this is where your creativity starts in the workflow. Go to the blending and select the first option which is Normal. Now use you your cursor keys to step through each one so you can see the changes on the highlights. Don't worry about strength of the effect yet. The goal is find a blend mode that will bring out the detail. Typically I end up with Overlay.)

Now adjust the Opacity slider, I end up between 10-30% depending on the image.

Highlights Sharpening

(The goal of this section is to sharpen the highlights only. I find separating the sharpening of the two tonal ranges more appealing and causes less of a halo effect on the edges. You can also have better control on Blending modes to make the sharpening less obvious.)

Now turn on the visibility for the " Highlight Sharpening "

Select the "Highlight Sharpening" layer and press Ctrl+Alt+2. This selects the highlights.

(I did not find a good explanation on what this shortcut key selection is actually selecting so I can't go in to any detail. Maybe someone can explain that or better yet, a method to select a tonal ranges by percentage, 10%, 20% ... I remember there was a shortcut to do that.)

Press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection

Press Delete to delete the shadows now selected

Press Ctrl+D to clear the selection

Okay something new here. Now go in to the menu items, Filters, Other and select the High Pass filter. Use somewhere between 4-7, I typically end up at 4 or 5.

Select a blending mode of "Color Burn".

(Now this is where your creativity starts in the workflow. Go to the blending and select the first option which is Normal. Now use you your cursor keys to step through each one so you can see the changes on the highlights. Don't worry about strength of the effect yet. The goal is find a blend mode that will bring out the detail. Typically I end up with Overlay, Soft Light and sometime Color Burn.)

Now adjust the Opacity slider, I end up between 4-30% depending on the image.

Shadow Sharpening

(The goal of this section is to sharpen the shadows only. Separating the sharpening of the two tonal ranges reduces the halo effect on the edges. You can also have better control on Blending modes to make the sharpening less obvious.)

Now turn on the visibility for the "Shadow Sharpening"

Select the "Shadow Sharpening" layer and press Ctrl+Alt+2 to selects the highlights.

(I did not find a good explanation on what this shortcut key selection is actually selecting so I can't go in to any detail. Maybe someone can explain that or better yet, a method to select a tonal ranges by percentage, 10%, 20% ... I remember there was a shortcut to do that.)

We will not be inverting the selection this time.

Press Delete to delete the highlights selected

Press Ctrl+D to clear the selection

Go to the menu items, Filters, Other and select the High Pass filter. Use somewhere between 4-7, I typically end up at 4 or 5.

Select a blending mode of "Overlay".

(Now this is where your creativity starts in the workflow. Go to the blending and select the first option which is Normal. Now use you your cursor keys to step through each one so you can see the changes on the highlights. Don't worry about strength of the effect yet. The goal is find a blend mode that will bring out the detail. Typically I end up with Overlay or Soft Light.)

Now adjust the Opacity slider, I end up between 4-30% depending on the image.

Wrapping this up
By this time you should have nice clean and sharp color image. If you find it's overly sharpened or over saturated for your tastes then fine tune those areas now. For sharpening you can adjust the Opacity sliders in the sharpening sections. For color saturation use you normal controls.

At this point I convert to BW if that's my goal. Duplicate all the layers from the "Working Layer" to the "Shadow Sharpening" layer by selecting them and dragging them down to the Duplicate Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

While they are still selected press "Ctrl+E" to Merge Down these layers.
Finish the image with contrast and color tone and any other touch up you feel necessary.

Press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+B to bring up the BW conversion menu.

(I really like using this method of conversion because of the control it gives me. I can chose to use one of the preset filters or use the Automatic option. Then I can fine tune each of the 6 color separately to bring out the clouds or object detail.)

One final contrast adjustment for taste and your done.

(Last note; You can use either Crtl+Alt+2 or +3 selecting a wider range in the highlights, but remember to be consistent in the workflow process or you can cause some banding to occur.)

[xxloverxx]

Very nicely formatted, makes it easy to follow along and it's got a lot of detail