A Beginner's Guide to Editing Black and White Photos in Lightroom

Creating a successful black and white image is about a lot more than simply pulling out all the saturation from a color image. If you are new to editing and wondering how to create black and white photos that really capture the eye, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know to create a stunning black and white shot in Lightroom.

Coming to you from Sawyer Hartman, this great video tutorial will show you the ins and outs of editing a black and white portrait in Lightroom. Black and white images have their own editing considerations: for example, they can often tolerate and be enhanced by greater levels of contrast and texture than you would normally use in a color shot, and as such, it takes its own approach. The real question, though, is: when do you convert a photo to black and white? The best advice I ever heard was: use color when you want to convey information and black and white when you want to convey emotion. Of course, this is a very simplified heuristic, but it is a good starting point. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Hartman. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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