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Creating a Grayscale Image

You can create rich grayscale images when you can control the brightness of the red, green, and blue channels, as well as the overall brightness. Use the Convert to Black and White tool to emphasize different areas or aspects of a photo, as well as alter its mood and tone.

If you hover your mouse over each slider and watch the effect on the small preview, it shows you which parts of the image will be affected by each channel. This helps to gauge the effect of each slider on the image.

You can save your settings as a preset for future use.

To Create a Grayscale Image:

In Edit mode, in the Color group, select Convert to Black & White.

You can also access the Convert to Black & White tool from the Filter drop-down menu or Filter toolbar.

Adjust the settings as described in the table below.
Click Done to save your changes, or click Cancel to discard your changes and return to the Filter menu.

Grayscale Options

Brightness Tab

On the Brightness tab, do any of the following:

Drag individual color sliders, or left-click on the image (where a color previously occurred) and drag up or down to alter the brightness of specific tones. For instance, drag your cursor on sky areas to alter the brightness of the blue.
Drag the Percent Red slider to the left or right.
The more red there is in a pixel, the more effect the red slider has on that pixel. The area of red in the picture is brightened or darkened more than other areas.
Drag the Percent Green slider the left or right.
The more green there is in a pixel, the more effect the green slider has on that pixel. The area of green in the picture is brightened or darkened more than other areas.
Drag the Percent Blue slider to the left or right.
The more blue there is in a pixel, the more effect the blue slider has on that pixel. The area of blue in the picture is brightened or darkened more than other areas.
Drag the Percent Brightness slider to the right or left to brighten or darken the whole image.

You can right-click the slider to reset the value to zero.

Contrast Tab

You can increase or decrease the contrast of each individual color. In addition, you can specify the brightness range that the contrast adjustment will target for each color.

On the Contrast tab, do the following:

Strength: To adjust the contrast in specific color tones, drag individual color sliders, or left-click on the image (where a color previously occurred) and drag up or down.

Balance: To set the targeted brightness range for the contrast adjustment, adjust the slider to bring details out of highlights or shadows. To bring details out of the midtones, leave the Balance sliders set to 0.

Hold down Shift while clicking and dragging on the image to target the color's corresponding Balance slider.

You can right-click the slider to reset the value to zero.

At the bottom of the Convert to Black & White panel, you can use the Amount and Hue sliders to add color back into the image. Choose the color using the Hue slider. The saturation of the color added back to any given pixel is scaled based on both the amount of color/saturation that existed in the original image and the Amount slider.

You can use the Edit Brush to paint this effect onto specific areas of your image.

You can use the Gradient tool to transition this effect across specific areas of your image.

You can use the Radial Gradient tool to apply effects around, or directly to, a center point.