Step 3: Create A New Document From The Channel

Once we've decided on the channel we're going to use for our black and white version, we need to create a brand new Photoshop document from the channel. To do that, Right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) directly on the channel in the Channels palette and choose Duplicate Channel from the menu that appears. Here, I'm duplicating the Red channel:

This will open the Duplicate Channel dialog box. In the Destination section of the dialog box, change the Document option to New. This will place the copy of the channel in its own document. Don't worry about naming the document or any of the other options:

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box. The copy of the channel will open inside its own document on your screen:

You can close out of the original photo's document window at this point since we no longer need it. Choose Don't Save if Photoshop asks if you want to save the changes you've made to it.

Step 4: Change The Color Mode To Grayscale

Whenever we delete one or more color channels from an RGB image or copy a channel to a new document, Photoshop automatically converts the image to the Multichannel color mode, useful for creating spot channels for special printing needs. Unfortunately, many of Photoshop's editing features are unavailable to us while the image is in the Multichannel color mode, so let's convert it to a different color mode. Since we're working with a black and white image, we'll convert it to Grayscale.

Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen, choose Mode, and then choose Grayscale from the list:

Step 5: Add A Levels Adjustment Layer

With the image now in the Grayscale color mode, let's see if we can quickly improve the overall tone and contrast of our black and white photo using a Levels adjustment layer. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Levels from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

For a more detailed explanation of how the Levels adjustment works, be sure to check out our Improving Image Tone With Levels tutorial.

Step 6: Adjust The Black, White And Midtone Sliders (If Needed)

If you're using Photoshop CS4 as I am here, the controls for the Levels adjustment layer will appear in the Adjustments Panel, which is new in CS4. If you're using Photoshop CS3 or earlier, the Levels dialog box will open on your screen.

The main feature of the Levels adjustment is the histogram, which shows us the current tonal range of the image. Directly below the histogram are three small sliders - one on either end and one in the middle. The slider below the histogram on the far left is the black point slider. We use the black point slider to adjust the black levels in the image, pulling the darkest pixels closer to pure black. If there's empty space between the left edge of the histogram window and the left edge of the histogram itself, as there is with my histogram, click on the black point slider and drag it towards the right until it's directly below the spot where the left edge of the histogram slope begins:

The slider below the histogram on the far right is the white point slider, which we use to adjust the white levels in the image, pushing the lightest pixels closer to pure white. If there's empty space between the right edge of the histogram window and the right edge of the histogram itself, click on the white point slider and drag it towards the left until it's directly below the spot where the right edge of the histogram slope begins. In my case, the right edge of the histogram is already as far to the right as it can go, which means my white point is already set to its optimal level so there's no need to make any further adjustment:

The slider below the middle of the histogram is the midtone slider, which allows us to adjust the brightness of the midtones in the image (the brightness values between pure black and pure white). If, after moving the black and white point sliders, your photo still appears too light or too dark, drag the midpoint slider left or right to lighten or darken the midtones. Dragging it towards the left will lighten them, while dragging it towards the right will darken them (sort of the exact opposite of what you might expect). In my case, I'm going to drag the midtone slider a little towards the right to darken the image further:

When you're done, click OK to accept your changes and exit out of the Levels dialog box (Photoshop CS3 and earlier only. Photoshop CS4 users can leave the Adjustments Panel open). Here, after improving the tone and contrast of the black and white version I "borrowed" from the Red channel, is my final result:

As we learned in this tutorial, Photoshop's individual color channels each give us a different black and white version of the image. Here, we chose a specific channel to use and in doing so, we tossed the other two channels away. Up next, we'll look at how to mix all three color channels together to create a custom black and white version using Photoshop's Channel Mixer!