Digital BW, The Print

> From: Nelson Ricciardi [mailto:nelson_@...]
>
> For general Photoshop editing, what is the best thing to do?
>
> - leave the image as a RGB 16 bit black and white, do all the editing and
> convert to grayscale at the end
>
> Or
>
> - Convert as soon as possible and edit in grayscale mode?
>
> By editing I mean levels and curves and some dodge and burning.

I find that what one does to improve a color picture is very different from
what one does to improve a B&W picture. In particular, B&W tolerates, even
requires, drastic variations in the dynamic range (i.e., Curves) that would
ruin any color picture. Therefore, I think that trying to do the sort of
editing you talk about in the RGB domain just adds a layer of obscurity
between the knobs you're twiddling and the finished product.

One trick that you might try, however, is to set up a grayscale proof setup,
since you can toggle that on and off with Alt+Y. This allows you to see what
you're doing in B&W, even though you're still manipulating the underlying
color data. This is particularly useful when playing with different color to
B&W conversion choices (i.e., deciding which colors to brighten and which to
darken), but things like dodging, burning, sharpening, blurring, cloning,
are probably not color-specific, so might as well be done after the
conversion.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...