CT Member Kacy here with a short tutorial on converting your photos from color to high-contrast black and white.

When I scrapbook (digitally and on paper), I almost always convert my photos to black and white, and I usually look for the easiest way to accomplish something because I am short on time AND lazy!

I have Photoshop and use RadLab to do most of my photo conversions – my recipe is Lights On, Bitchin BW, Lights On, and Punch Out in case you were wondering… But you can get great results quickly with the tools you already have.

Here is a favorite photo of my cat:

I really dislike when the colors in my photos clash with the supplies I’m using.  Sadly, I don’t have a lot of leopard-print papers or elements, so I want to convert this to black and white.

From my menu, I choose Image, Adjustments, Desaturate and my photo now looks like this:

Photoshop has a Black and White adjustment tool (in the Image, Adjustments menu), but I’m looking for something quick and easy, not tinkering with 10 adjustment sliders.

This photo is really kind of bland.  To get more contrast and some brightness, we are going to use the Brightness / Contrast tool a few times (located in the Image, Adjustments menu).  I will often adjust the brightness upwards to 10, and the contrast to 50, and then apply the changes. If that still isn’t quite how I want the photo to look, I will go back in another time or two and adjust the contrast again.

If you still aren’t getting the look you want, you can also adjust the levels or curves of the image – go to Image, Adjustments, Levels or Curves.

Here is the final image using manual adjustments and the image using my RadLab recipe.  Just a very slight difference in the two photos!

I hope this post was helpful – happy scrapping!