Desert landscape photo in black & white

by Craig

Previous attempts at converting desert landscapes from color to black and white were disappointing. There are several methods of conversion, but my favorite is using the channel mixer in Photoshop. It works great for winter shots, alpine images, and much of my other work.

However, when I try it with a great desert landscape, the product leaves much to be desired. I think it's the fact that the green plants (mostly sage and cactus) and the reddish brown soil and rocks look like similar shades of gray.

So, for this image, I tried something new and like how it works. I dragged down the sliders for the blue and red channels to darken the sky and rocks, while pushing up the slider for the green channel, which lightened the plants and restored the bright whites.

Whenever converting to black and white, make sure your initial image has sharp contrast with some very bright whites and very dark blacks. Also, you may want to sharpen more than you would with a color image, as the textures and patterns stand out more in black and white.