How to Convert an Image to Grayscale in Photoshop

Despite the popularity of color photography, black and white photography has many uses. It gives a picture a sense of timelessness, it lets the emotion, shape and texture of the image shine through and even eliminates many white balance and sharpness problems. Most digital cameras can take pictures directly in grayscale, but by taking pictures in color and converting them to grayscale with Photoshop you keep your options open.

Instructions

1. Open Adobe Photoshop and load the picture you want to convert to grayscale.

2. Select the "Channels" tab. The pallet menu at the right is set to the "Layers" tab by default. Click off of this onto the "Channels" tab.

3. Open the Channels Mixers. The channels mixer will allow you to change the colors in the picture. Choose "Adjustments" from the "Image" menu and then choose "Channel Mixer."

4. Click the "Monochrome" checkbox at the bottom to convert the image to grayscale.

5. Adjust the colors with the color mixer. Using the sliders, change the percentage of red, green and blue in the image. The three percentages should add up to 100 percent. If they add up to less than 100 percent, your image will darken and if they add up to more than 100 percent your image will lighten.

6. Play with the red, green and blue sliders until you get the grayscale image you want. Look at the preview image Photoshop gives you to see how your image looks when you move the sliders. Depending on how you move the sliders, the objects in the picture will change from black to gray to white.

Tips & Warnings

• A quicker way to change an image to grayscale in Photoshop is to select "Mode" and then "Grayscale" from the "Image" menu. However, you will not be able to make any adjustments to how the image looks.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish