Adobe Lightroom - Digital Photography Workflow

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 - ebook project

Adobe Lightroom - turning a red & white striped lighthouse a correct shade of black & white

A very simple example of how the Grayscale Mixer can help you get better results from your color to grayscale conversions. If you look at your father's (or more likely grandfather's) camera outfit you will find that he had a lot of colored filters for shooting black and white film, these filters where used to darken and lighten certain colors in a scene. Adobe has taken the same approach in the Lightroom Grayscale Mixer toolbox. Slide a color to darker or lighter and the corresponding color will be lighter or darker in the grayscale image.

Lighthouse color

The full color original phot of the Quoddy West Lighthouse in Lubec, Maine, it is the furthest east lighthouse on the US coast. The Quoddy East Lighthouse stands across the bay on the Canadian island of Campobello (once the summer home of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt).

Notice that the Basic Panel (at the top) has Color selected and that the HSL /Color / Grayscale Panel (at the bottom) is set to HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminance).

Lighthouse gray

An automatic grayscale conversion without adjusting any of the color sliders. The red stripes are almost as black as the base of the light (which is black). Note that Grayscale has been selected in the Basic Panel and that the HSL Panel has automatically changed to the Grayscale Mix settings.

Lighthouse gray

In this image the red slider has been adjusted from the numerical value of -9 to +40 to lighten the red stripes and red roof of the lighthouse and lighthouse keeper's house. I also decreased the Aqua and Blue settings to darken the sky and make the clouds stand out a bit more. The image became to dark after those settings, so I increased Brightness slightly in the Basic Panel.

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