Use a B&W Layer to Adjust Color Brightness

I found this great trick on PetaPixel.

Applies to Photoshop CS5 and above.

1. Create a B&W adjustment layer above the background layer**.
2. Set the blending mode of the B&W layer to "Luminosity"
3. Adjust the individual color sliders to suit.

**Your image will change to B&W. When you do step 2, you'll see the original color image.

You can also use the B&W adjustment layer to convert a color image to B&W. In this case, leave the blending mode set to 'Normal'. You can then adjust the brightness of colors as in the tip above.

--P

Preston, thanks for the tip, just made an action for it.....

Good find Preston... Seems like it could be very useful. Thanks, as always, for sharing.

Preston and David, any thoughts on the "Default" settings in the B&W layer? Just a thought although I did not see in the video any change there with regard to the same default set levels of each color. I can say I've not used that much having done little B&W with the PS stuff, used the NIK more often for B&W.
Admittedly I did not see any obvious color change after opening the layer, so I assume the default is just that for that layer maybe?

Thanks for sharing. I am sure I am going to use this trick.

Paul,

I would assume that the default settings are based upon the brightness of each color when the blending mode is set to 'luminosity'.

You could run a quick test using two very different images to see if the default settings differ between the two.

--P

Preston,

Not sure I understand the default on the layer, as it remains the same for all images I open and it is the same as in the video. Basically, Red 40 Yellow 60 Green 40 Cyan 60 Blue 20 Magenta 80. This is the settings I see after creating the B&W layer and set blend to luminosity. Of course if I use the "auto" function on that layer things adjust all over the place differently from image to image. No reason to do that per se beyond wanting to see what it would do.

Not to over analyze this here I was just curious about their defaults in the PS program on that layer.

Sometimes it seems there's no rhyme nor reason for things Adobe does.

--P

Good find Preston. That trick might prove useful.

A good tip. I do this a lot. You can take it a stage further if you have Silver Efex Pro (SEP) for BW conversion. Instead of adding a BW adjustment layer run SEP and use either one of the presets 'High structure smooth' or 'high structure harsh'. That will add a new layer back in Photoshop on top of the original. Just change the SEP layer to luminosity. Those presets are particularly good for adding texture to detail - I think it basically adds contrast to edges, just like the clarity slider does in Adobe Camera Raw. It makes your images pop really well.