The Photoshop® CS Book for Digital Photographers

Custom Grayscale Using Channel Mixer

This has become the favorite of many professionals (and some argue that this is the absolute best way to create grayscale photos from color photos) because it lets you blend all three RGB channels to create a custom grayscale image, and it’s easier to use (and more intuitive) than using the Calculations feature that I’ll show you later in this chapter. Here’s how it works.

Step One.

Open the color photo you want to convert to grayscale. Choose Channel Mixer from the Adjustment Layers pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette (as shown here). Channel mixer is also found under the Image menu, under Adjustments; however, by choosing it as an Adjustment layer, you have the added flexibility of being able ...