Get the moody monochrome look

James Paterson demonstrates how to create punchy black and white effects and gorgeous split-toned photos with Affinity Photo

- James Paterson

There are several ways to convert to mono in Affinity Photo, but the two most useful methods both offer crucial control over the brightness of different colours during the conversion.

One of these is the Black & White adjustment layer, which is found within the Photo Persona. The other is the Black & White panel within the Develop Persona. Both offer a set of colour sliders that let you tune the look of black and white by, say, darkening a blue sky or lightening foliage. We’ve used the Develop Persona (can be used for Raws and JPEGs). The controls allow us to lower the brightness of the blown-out lights in the scene, revealing detail and balancing out tones.

Converting to mono is often only the starting point for other edits. Initially, black-and-white images can look a little flat, so we’ll go on to boost contrast here with Curves. Black-and-white images also offer the chance for selective lightening and darkening (often to a greater degree than the coloured one), so we can dodge and burn parts of the scene to balance the dark foreground with the brighter sky. We do this using the Develop Persona’s Overlays – the best tool for selective adjustments. Finally, we can add a colour toning effect. We created a warm tone using the Develop Persona’s Split Toning controls.