The colors in the image are then split into one of two channels named "a" and "b", which stand for nothing more than "a" and "b". In fact, the "L" in Lab stands for "Lightness". The reason that the Lab color mode is a good choice for converting a color image to black and white is that it separates the lightness values in the image from the color. Fortunately, we need only a basic understanding of it for our purposes here. So if RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue, which seems simple enough, what does Lab stand for? As I mentioned, Lab, in this case anyway, is pronounced "L-a-b", not "Lab" as in short for "Laboratory", although in fairness, it wouldn't hurt to be a mad scientist when trying to understand exactly how the Lab color mode works. In this color mode, Photoshop mixes different amounts of red, green and blue together to create every color we see in the image. In the Grayscale color mode tutorial, we learned that by default, all color photos and images use what's called the RGB color mode, and that "RGB" stands for Red, Green and Blue, the three primary colors of light. Here once again is the photo I'll be using throughout these black and white conversion tutorials:ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! The Lab Color Mode In fact, don't go dismissing the Grayscale color mode too quickly, since as we'll see at the end of this tutorial, while it may not be the best way to convert an image to black and white, it definitely serves a useful purpose. ![]() It's also similar to the Grayscale method we looked at initially, since they both involve converting the image from RGB to a different color mode. In this fifth tutorial in the series, we'll look at a slightly more advanced way of converting color photos to black and white, this time using the Lab (pronounced "L-a-b") color mode, which is a similar technique to the Luminosity blend mode method in that it also uses the lightness values in the image to give us our black and white version. We also learned how to improve on the results using the Screen and Multiply blend modes along with a layer mask. In the third tutorial, we saw how to "map" the original colors in a photo to a black-to-white gradient using a Gradient Map adjustment.Īnd in the previous tutorial, we used the Luminosity blend mode to blend the lightness values in our image with a solid white background. Next, we looked at a couple of ways to desaturate the color in an image. ![]() ![]() In the first tutorial in this series, we learned how to convert an image to the Grayscale color mode.
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