Vintage black & white

Explore monochrome techniques in Photoshop and apply realistic analogue effects to your images

Before

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1 High ISO mono

With the Background Layer active, press Ctrl/Cmd+J to make a copy. Next, go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter and when the dialog opens, click on the B&W button to convert the image to black and white. Expand the Curve tab and select the Parametric Curve. Drag the Highlights slider to -50 and the Shadows slider to +50. Expand the Effects tab and set Grain to 65, Size to 45 and Roughness to 40. Click the OK button to close the dialog and apply the adjustments to the Layer. he black and white darkroom was – and remains – a place of huge creative potential, where special effects ranging T from simple dodging and burning to complex composites and much more were possible. But keeping things simple, we’re going to focus on four basic black and white techniques that will give your photos a realistic vintage look.

To ensure that these techniques will work with any images, we’ll only use stock black and white conversion methods so that no colour channels are adjusted. The problem with this can be that a technique becomes specific to photos that contain those colours. Instead, we’ll use Adjustment Layers to take these basic mono conversions to their creative conclusion.

Some of the techniques can also be adjusted to provide a more unique result based on personal preference, so where other adjustments have been applied beyond black and white, you can experiment to discover your preferred result.

2 Sepia toning

Click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and select Black & White. When the dialog opens, close it straight away because we only need the default conversion, rather than a custom conversion where the individual colour channels are adjusted. Next, create a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer and, when the dialog opens, click on the