Black-and-white photography has a way of emphasizing the relationship between light and shadow in ways color photography often cannot. Transforming an ordinary photo into a striking black-and-white image requires a blend of technical precision and creative decision-making. This video demonstrates how to use Lightroom Classic to create stunning black-and-white edits, walking you through the process step by step.
Coming to you from Christian Möhrle of The Phlog Photography, this detailed video explores how to take a raw image with a dull overcast sky and turn it into a dramatic black-and-white composition. Möhrle begins with basic adjustments, showing how to use exposure, highlights, and shadows to create a strong foundation for the edit. By dropping the exposure significantly, he deepens the shadows while carefully protecting details in the darkest areas by slightly raising the shadow slider. These changes are balanced by increasing the whites, which adds a crisp contrast to the image, especially around sharp edges in the subject.
What sets this edit apart is the use of Lightroom’s masking tools. Möhrle explains how to select the background and apply radial and linear gradients to create a sense of depth and drama. He darkens the sky and bottom of the frame, then uses a radial gradient to simulate directional light. This process not only emphasizes the subject—a tower—but also creates a balanced interplay between light and dark areas. By carefully subtracting the subject from each mask, Möhrle ensures that adjustments only affect the intended areas, adding precision to the workflow.
In addition to tonal adjustments, Möhrle enhances the image with sharpening and texture. He increases clarity and dehaze to bring out finer details, especially around the tower’s edges. These tools also help counteract any softness introduced by earlier exposure changes. He emphasizes the importance of fine-tuning the sharpening settings to target specific areas, such as the tower’s structural lines, while avoiding unwanted artifacts in smoother sections like the sky.
For an added creative touch, Möhrle incorporates subtle color grading, even for a black-and-white photo. Using the color grading panel, he applies a faint blue tone to the shadows, giving the image a silver-like quality. This adjustment is nearly imperceptible but adds an extra layer of polish to the final result. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.
