I ran across this old family photo (circa 1900) taken somewhere in Northern Kentucky. Let me state first: I am no blood relation to these Spanish immigrants.

Take note of the gal (?) in the center. I'm not sure if thats a "Tom Boy" or if someone has a skeleton in their closet?

This is the original.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

This is after I adjusted the color levels to get it close to black and white, then changed it from RGB to Gray-scale.

I was attempting to regain that New Photograph look it should have had. I notice B&W Photos from the 1960's I have in my case have changed from B@W to a yellow hue as well, even though not quite as pronounced as the original shown here.

Now, my question is this, does this process increase photo clarity for you as a viewer?

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

ooops....

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

This is partly personal opinion.... the sepia toned one, to me, is visually more "pleasing" since it isn't so "stark"... the other thing, though, is that I believe you'd need to do a bit more work on translating between the two... if you look at the bottoms of the two, the greyscale has overrun some of the detail... this may only be nit-picking, but it would be something you'd have to look out for.... I HAVE seen BW originals from that time period, and they do look like what you have here... mostly, I'd guess it's a matter of what you're trying for... BTW, KUDOS, historically, this tends to be more than a little difficult to do. Lou.

"..... and that was when things got interestiing."

I see what you mean. I need to contact the person with the original and tell them I need that photograph to start with.

I didn't notice it until after I posted, but there is that cross hatched look in this image you get when scanning documents such as magazines.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

You could try using "Hue/Saturation" to get a BW effect. I find this way often outdoes the convert to grayscale function. And this also lets you continue to work with PShops RGB functions.

I never intended to make art.

I see what you mean, thanx.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

If you want just simple conversion to black&white you can also use channel mixer, just check the monochrome box and play directly with channels. But if you want also to polish the photograph, then you`ll have to correct each channel (in channel pallete) in RGB mode :) Tihomir

Open your mind and share the knowledge!

Thanks for the heads up Tihomir.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

I usually start it off with an Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight which would bring out a lot details then start playing with the adjustment layer and channels.

I'll give that a try too.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

If you're looking for clarity, as well as making it B&W, you can give this a try as well. Start w/the original, create an Adjustment Layer of Hue/Sat, and drop the Sat to make it B&W (sepia is considered romantic, but the photographers would be aghast - it's actually the print's emulsion RUSTING). Make another Adjustment Layer that is Levels and pull the right slider to ALMOST to the egde of white - don't let any details blow out, but this will brighten it all over and can bring some things out that you didn't realize were there (new deep scratches, texture on dresses and faces, etc. - bad AND good stuff). You might even want to pull the left slider to the edge of black - don't worry about it getting dark because you're not doing it to the actual image - just your VIEW of it at this point. Creat a new layer above the Background that is Soft Light mode - get your spray-paint brush (hit the letter "B"), make it 0% hardness (the softest, basically), hit "D" to make your colors B&W default, and change the opacity to around 30%. Paint on this layer to doge and burn details - this works MUCH better than the actual Dodge&Burn tools (oddly)! The reason for all the different layers is so that you don't actually alter anything on the original image. This give you the most flexibility later on when you want to tweak it for a final. At this point you might wanna go to the original image at the bottom and "clean it up" like using the Heaing brush and/or the Clone Tool to tidy up scratches and dust. Good luck and have fun! -Lew ;-)

Hey Lew, thanx. Thats just what I'm looking for.

Like you said, even a hundred years ago, they were actually black and white. I've got photos from when I was a kid in the 50's that are starting to rust too.

This image is for my adopted mother, and I want it to be able to hang as clear as possible for another hundred years.

By then, if someone wants a better one, they can hop in their personal "Way-Back" machine and take it themselves.

Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy!

Hehe (looks around for the DeLorian and Michael J. Fox!).