B&W Conversion with Raw Therapee

[David]

Geoff - File found and downloaded. I'll report back later. Many Thanks - David.

[David]

Geoff - Here are some images produced as described earlier. I've use version 2.4.1, but the slider system is the same in the later version and I have checked that the method works in that later version. The first image is a screen grab of all the Channel Mixer sliders set to 100. (Actually, one slider is slightly out but it does not matter.) The image at this point will be B/W.



The second shows the sliders set for what I have called "sepia50".



This third shot shows the result:



The fourth image shows a "gold" tint and the fifth a rather heavy "blue" tint.





The settings for the "gold" tint are (all) Red Channel 167 Green 120 and Blue 30;
for the "blue" tint Red 65, Green 65 and Blue 140.

Now, I do not actually know what the best settings are for sepia, gold etc., but it's the idea of how to do it that I think you're after. Note also that you do not need to desaturate the image in any other way, nor do you have to use colour boost. You may wish to alter exposure settings and so on, but the Channel Mixer will do the tinting.

Hope this is helpful.

David

[Geoff F]

Right then, thanks for that David. Just like this morning's weather, the fog is slowly clearing!

Yes I was desaturating then attempting to bring back a tint.

After a bit of experimenting with a few settings, I also found that tweaking the WB Tint control can help to fine tune the tint shade and 'depth'.

When I get a bit more time I will play around with various mixtures to see what looks best for different tint shade options.

Here is a quick attempt to produce something between gold and sepia. And for a change, I have chosen a maritime theme instead of farming. I have deliberately used an image with a bit of exposure problems to see how I can cope with a tricky image.



ps. I did get a little bit of widely spaced noise in the sky, but I have smoothed that away with a lightly set Blur Tool.

[David]

Geoff - Looks good. I forgot to put in the previous post, and you probably know already, that you can save your settings as a "profile" and bring them back, essentially a one-click process. So you can have a "sepia" profile etc.

Cheers

David