Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [172]
Camera Calibration panel
Another thing I discovered recently is that you can also use the Camera Calibration panel sliders to affect the outcome of a Camera Raw black and white conversion.
Camera Raw Split Toning panel
After you have used the HSL/Grayscale panel to convert a photograph to black and white, you can then use the Split Toning panel to colorize the image. The controls in this panel allow you to apply one color to the highlights, another color to the shadows and use the Saturation sliders to adjust the intensity of the colors. This is how you create a basic split tone color effect. There is also the Balance slider, which lets you adjust the midpoint for the split tone. In Figure 6.5, the photograph I applied the split tone to was a high-key image and it was therefore more appropriate to offset the Balance slider so that the blue shadows toning was applied more strongly in the shadows. Without such an adjustment the shadow color would have barely registered. The HSL/Grayscale and Split Tone controls are incredibly versatile. Bear in mind these can work equally well with non-raw images. It is just a shame that there isn't a Split Toning panel like this available in Photoshop.
Figure 6.5 This shows an example of the Split Toning panel in action.
Camera Raw color image split toning
Although the Split Toning panel appears to be an extension of the HSL/Grayscale panel, these controls can be just as useful when working on color images. Although there are ways to produce color cross-processing effects in Photoshop, the Camera Raw Split Toning controls can produce similar results, but with less hassle (Figure 6.6).
Figure 6.6 These two screen shots show a Split Tone being applied to a full color image. In the top screen shot you can see the before version and in the bottom screen shot you can see the result after I had applied a blue/sepia Split Toning effect.
Black and white output
Black and white printing should be easy, but if you are printing from RGB files you'll meet the exact same issues that affect normal color printing. Your ability to match the print output to the display will, as always, be dependent on the accuracy of the computer display calibration, the type of paper you are printing with and the effectiveness of the printer profile you are using. Mind you, with black and white printing there is perhaps more latitude for the color to be off and still produce pleasing results. If you are aiming for a perfectly neutral black and white print, then the profile used must be accurate. In theory, if the measured Info panel gray values are all neutral, the print output should be neutral too. If you are using one of the more advanced Epson printers you may be interested to know that you can access the Advanced B&W Photo settings shown in Figure 6.7 (to apply coloring effects) via the Epson driver system print dialog.
Figure 6.7 This shows the Advanced Color Settings for the Epson 4800 printer when the ‘Advanced B&W Photo’ option is selected in the main Print Settings section of the System print interface. This allows you to apply different black and white output toning options.
Advanced B&W Photo tips
There are a few things you need to do in order to access and make the most of the Advanced B&W feature for Epson printers. Firstly, this is only available with certain printer models, such as the Epson 4800. You can make a print using RGB or Grayscale, but the printer driver assumes the image to be in neutral RGB (and ignores any colors), or in Grayscale mode. Normally you would convert to Grayscale first, in which case the gamma of the Grayscale