Go moody and mono

Want to know the secret to making a striking black and white image? Of course your do! Dan Mold shows you how in Photoshop Elements

- Dan Mold

THE MISSION

Make a black and white conversion in Photoshop Elements

Time needed 15 minutes

Skill level Beginner

Kit needed Photoshop Elements

Black and white images have a timeless look to them, and have been a long favorited edit for photographers for years, harking back to the glory days of film. But achieving the very best mono pictures requires more than simply desaturating your shots.

So we’re going to show you how to, first of all, work up a Raw file and squeeze out as much of that extra Raw data as possible. We’ll do this using the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in that comes built-in to Photoshop Elements to boost the contrast and sharpen particular details. Then we’ll take the picture into Element’s Expert mode to do some dodging and burning – a classic technique to darken and lighten specific areas of your shot. We’re going to work on a landscape image, but you could use any picture in your image library, or download our Landscape.CR2 Raw file (see web link on the left) we used for this look. Read on to see how…