Making Black and White Images in Photoshop

This tutorial is to help you turn your colour photos into professional black and white using Photoshop:
1) Go to Image menu
2) Choose Mode > Lab Color (it probably asks you if you want it to be flattened, accept it)
3) Click on the Channel tab, (on the right hand side of the Layers)
4) Drag channel ‘b’ into the garbage can shown on the bottom (or delete it)
5) Drag channel ‘Alpha 2’ into the garbage can
6) Go back to Image menu
7) Choose Mode > Greyscale
Your image is probably very light with low contrast now, to fix that:
8) Make a duplicate layer of the layer that you have
9) Right click on the duplicate layer
10) Choose Blending Options
11) In the default Blending Options, usually the blend mode is Normal, change that to Multiply
12) Play with Multiply Blending mode opacity until you get a good BW.

THE QUALITY OF LIGHT

• HARD LIGHT: It's a reseult of a point light source such as sun high in a cloudless sky or electronic flash. The shadows in a scene with hard light have sharp defined edges. Hard light is harsh and such can yield a dramatic effect.
• SOFT LIGHT: It's a light that is diffuse and is the result of a reflected or broad light source. The edges of shadows in a scene are softer, gradating from a dense center to a blurrier edge.

-Blue Fier

To Shoot Close up Flowers

Aperture: f/22 or the smallest aperture like f/32
Shutter Speed: 1/60 or 1/125 sec

This may produce a background that has a high contrast with the subject.

-Bryan Peterson (Understanding Exposure)

APERTURE AND SHUTTER SPEED

Equivalent Exposures

• f-stop: f/22 shutter speed: 1/60
• f-stop: f/16 shutter speed: 1/125
• f-stop: f/11 shutter speed: 1/250
• f-stop: f/8 shutter speed: 1/500
• f-stop: f/5.6 shutter speed: 1/1000

SHUTTER SPEED

• It's how long the camera shutter remains open when you take a photo.
• It's measured in seconds or fraction of a second.
• It makes it possible for the camera to capture time passing

Example: 1/8 second is a slow shutter speed. It makes the camera sensor be exposed to light for a longer period of time than a fast shutter speed like 1/1000 second. Most of the night shots are taken with longer exposure (example above) to capture more light.

-Blue Fier

HARMONY VS DISHARMONY

Harmonious composition:

• The component parts relate to each other in colors, scale, design and etc, like orange and apples

Disharmonious composition:

• It lacks a cohesive strucutre.

Focal Point

Focal Point = Center of Interest

This is the point of emphasis in the composition.
Symmetrical photographs can employ a center of interest, they can also feature a pattern-based design.