How to Change Color to Black-and-White with Photoshop 7

A Black-and-White Image

Photoshop 7 is a very expensive but powerful application, loaded with editing features. Used copies can be purchased under $200. The large number of features makes Photoshop 7 very complicated to use. Simple editing such as changing a color photo to black and white is not intuitive. Here are three methods to change a color photograph to black-and-white.

Instructions

Method 1

1. Open a color photo image in Photoshop 7.0 by selecting "File" in the Main Menu and choosing "Open". Browse for the picture you want to work on and choose it. You will see the image displayed in the Photoshop work area.

2. Click on "Image" in the Main Menu of Photoshop. Select "Mode" and then "Grayscale". The picture will turn black-and-white. (Hit "CTRL" and "z" at the same time to undo any editing change. In this case, this will revert to color.)

3. Save the picture with a different file name. You may want to keep the color picture for another use.

Method 2

1. Open an image as in Method 1.

2. Press "SHIFT", "CTRL" and "u" button at the same time. An alternate way is to mouse click on "Image" in the Main Menu, select "Adjustments", and choose "Desaturate".

3. Make other adjustments such as brightness and contrast, by clicking on "Image" in the Main Menu, selecting, "Adjustments" and then "Brightness/Contrast". You can also add a color tint by clicking on "Image" in the Main Menu, selecting "Adjustments" and then selecting "Color Balance".

4. Save the picture with a different file name.

Method 3

1. Open a picture as in Method 1.

2. Look for the pop-up window on the left that has Layers, Channels, and Path tabs. If you don't see it, go to "Windows" option in the Main Menu of Photoshop and select "Channels". You should see a pop-up window with the Channels tabs open showing four rows of channels: RGB, Red, Green and Blue. The RGB row should already be selected. This shows the original color photograph. The other channels are greyscale (black-and-white) versions of the photo in Red, Green, and Blue.

3. Select the "Red", "Green, or "Blue" grayscale channel. You have three black-and-white versions to choose from. Select one that suits your taste.

4. Make other adjustments as described in Section 2. There are many options for further photo editing under the "Image" and "Adjustment" options in the Main Menu.

5. Save the picture with a different file name.

References

• Adobe: Photoshop Support