Introduction

Someone posted a query on Fred Miranda's forums, asking for suggestions about turning backgrounds to B&W. I made one suggestion and better idea came from someone using the soubriquet, vDog. The thread prompted me to have a play, so I picked a few images and these are the results.

Technique

I discovered that there is no best method to select the foreground subject; different selection tools work better with different images. I used at various times, the magic wand, the colour range selector, the marquis tool, and the magnetic lasso. Invariably, the quick mask tool is required to tidy up. I found it was easier to use the eraser tool rather than the brush tool, so I was inverting the selection backwards and forwards to include or exclude parts of the image. For complex selections it's a good idea to save the selection and the PSD file, in case you need to go back to it. For simpler selections, the choice is invert the final selection path and either cut and paste this to create a new layer, or just leave the selection in place for the next step. (You can even apply the selection path to a 16-bit image, and convert that to have a B&W background.)

The next step is conversion to B&W. I played around with several options: Fred Miranda's B&W Film Emulation, an action called Tri-X that I downloaded from somewhere (I've forgotten where), and, in one case, I used an infra-red simulation action that I created based on an article on the Lepp Photo site. Generally, I preferred the conversion using Fred's "no filter" action or the ASA 400.  One problem I did have was posterisation when saving the downsized version for the web. I compensated for this by using a higher quality setting (unfortunately, producing larger files) or sometimes by redoing the B&W conversion using the ASA 400 action, where simulated grain helped avoid the artefacts.