greyscale

[sralser]

I'm starting to play round with B&W images.  i'm wondering about when is hte best time to convert to B&W.  Do you do all your Basic and Tone Curve corrections first and then go to b&W, or do it before the tone curve corrections?   Does one way workbetter than the other or is dependent on the image etc?

thanks

Steve

[61Dynamic]

It doesn't really matter when you convert to B&W. It's a personal preference based on your intent and conversion methods.

For me, if an image is never going to be color, then I'll convert in the raw converter if the image is in Lightroom. If it is in ACR I'd be more inclined to convert it after its been developed using the channel mixer. If I do any cloning, I'll do so to the color layer. I typically do most tone adjustments in the raw converter and then fine-tune if needed after B&W conversion.

Since your just starting out, you might have fun trying out the many types of conversion available in Photoshop while you experiment.

[61Dynamic]

I got a notice to this topic via email and didn't realize it was a LR specific question. My apologies for the non-LR specific response.

The appropriate response:
I typically set WB to the image first since this can have an effect on the overall outcome of the BW conversion. Then I convert to BW and do all tonal adjustments once the image is BW.

By converting to B&W before doing tonal adjustments I eliminate the distracting elements that color can introduce. Color images typically need different tonal adjustments than a good BW image.