Converting To Black And White In Lightroom; The Little Known Sliders

Concert Under The Stars, United States Army Continental Band performing at Ft. Eustis, VA  (click to enlarge)
This was converted to black and white tweaking only the blue/yellow and green/magenta white balance sliders in Lightroom
Fuji X-T1, 18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens @ 18mm; 1/25th sec. @ f/2.8; ISO 6400 (it was virtually dark when I made this)

Most of the time I use NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 to convert my color images to black and white. NIK does a very nice job of giving us innumerable options so we can produce an image exactly that fits our vision.  However, there are times when I use Lightroom to convert my RAW images from color to black and white or use LIghtroom while experimenting with images to nail down the look I'm trying to achieve.

The normal way of converting images in Lightroom is to us the Develop Module, third panel from the top marked, HSL/Color/Black and White.  When you convert, you will see a number of color sliders which will affect each particular color in an image.  Those colors are red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple and magenta.  By moving each slider either left or right, you affect the luminance (brightness) of only objects of that color in your original image. Additionally, when converting to black and white, Lightroom gives you a choice of "no automatic changes" to the sliders (they all remain in the "0" position when you click on the Black and White Tab), or a default pre-programmed change based upon Adobe's engineers' research.  The nice thing is you get to choose which you prefer when you convert from color to black and white, either no automatic adjustments or pre-programmed basic automatic adjustments are applied to each color.

Using these sliders is pretty basic and easy.  For example, if you want to darken a blue sky just pull the blue slider to the left and anything blue in the image will get darker.  If you want to lighten a field of corn, pull the green slider to the right and the green foliage will get lighter.  One needs to be cognizant, however, that a lot of things have more than one color mixed together.  For example, most "green" foliage has as much, if not more, yellow as green in it so you may want to use a combination of both colors' sliders to achieve the exact desired tonality.  Reds are notorious for having yellows in them making the orange slider as well as the red slider germane to your desired adjustment.

There are a couple of other sliders about which most people don't think that also can be used to adjust your converted image.  Just using these two sliders, in some images, is all you need to do to successfully create a black and white conversion that suits your needs. I will also say the original position of these two sliders will have a great affect on what you can do or how much you can adjust your image using the individual color sliders mentioned above.  These two sliders are the blue/yellow and the green/magenta sliders in the basic adjustment panel, normally used for adjusting a color image to attain the correct white balance.  I previously posted about the importance of correct white balance using these sliders before converting to black and white here. 

The original color balance of your image, before converting it to black and white, can have a tremendous effect on how much leeway you have in making your final adjustments and the overall look of the black and white image itself.  Additionally, in some cases when your image looks pretty good when initially converting it, you can use only the blue/yellow and green/magenta to tweak your image when converting to black and white.  There may be no need to spend a lot of time playing with the individual color sliders.

I would encourage you to try it first when converting and, if you aren't satisfied with the results, then drop down to the individual color adjustment sliders to make further adjustments.  It just may save you some time, effort and frustration.


Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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