Digital BW, The Print

*-Interesting to follow the discussion about settings in the PS 
channel mixer.

I started out using a suggested generic mix  of 30/60/10 and find 
that to be a very good starting point.  (tutorial @ 
www.lumika.org/gear photoshop channel mixer.html) When you 
select  the mixer, it is default set to 100% red. I assume that 
would be what grayscale is, but I  could be wrong.  It surprised 
me that my images look better without  strongly favoring the red 
channel, since I have been doing mostly outdoor White Sands 
New Mexico scenics with white texture sand, deep blue skies 
and  puffy white clouds. I seem to get the best mix by leaving the 
blue at 10% and juggling the red & green. Sometimes the clouds 
are helped with a little more red 40/50/10  Whenever I go back to 
make a comparison with graybit, I always like my mix better.


                 Lincoln


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie 
Ess" <albatros-@g...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mike 
Sommers 
> 
> > The hardest part for me is converting my images from color 
to B&W. 
> I go 
> > into the channel mixer and usually come out with 40% green 
and 60% 
> red, 
> > or vice versa... but there are so many combinations that 
> technically 
> > "work." I'm constantly secong-guessing myself.
> > 
> > Most importantly, I'd like to set up a Photoshop action that will 
> > quickly convert hundreds of images from color to B&W... 
Does 
> anybody 
> > have a recommendation for a basic setting in the channel 
mixer? or 
> some 
> > other way of confidently batch-processing from color to B&W 
for 
> > "everyday" shots? I'll be printing with the Epson 1280 onto 
Epson 
> > Heavyweight Matte (and then Enhanced Matte, once all my 
Heavyweight 
> runs 
> > out) with UltraTone Inks from MIS and Paul Roark's workflow.
> > 
> 
> Mike, BW conversion is what I do most of the times here. I dont 
know 
> what type of shots you do most, but for myself I found out that 
one 
> setting would not work for all photos - specially if I want a 
> good "black and white" look. As we dont have colors as an 
expression 
> in our  photos, everything lies in the different tones of grey and 
> the contrasts. If your photos come out contrasty from the 
beginning, 
> it might be easier with a general channel mixer setting - or 
even the 
> simple "PS convert to bit grey"command. For portraits its useful 
to 
> slightly enhance the red channel to give a softer look to the 
faces, 
> if there is too low contrast however the green channel is better 
to 
> enhance. 
> 
> You can build 2 or 3 standard actions and once you get a 
feeling 
> which one is appropriate for which photo, batch apply different 
> actions to a group of photos.
> 
> Most difficult in b&w are flat indoor portraits made without flash 
- 
> when you enhance the contrasts they easily start to look very 
> unhealthy :-)
> If you need the channel settings for green and red 
enhancements, let 
> me know - I will check the numbers out and tell you.
> 
> regards Bernie