Hue Saturation Greyscale

The hue saturation greyscale conversion is a truly amazing technique for creating absolutely wonderful black and white images. Apparently this method was developed for Photoshop by a fellow named Russell Brown.

As it says in the title, two Hue and Saturation Adjustment layers are used.

The first Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer emulates Black and White Film and the second Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer acts like the Filters one would use with Black and White film.

The real beauty of this technique is the incredible range of adjustments available with the "Filter" Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer.

Here's how to create a Hue Saturation Greyscale with the dual Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer method.

Open the image you want to convert to a Hue Saturation Greyscale. We want to make a double of the original image so - Ctrl+A (Select all), Ctrl+C (Copy) and finally Ctrl+Shift+V (Paste As New Image). This is what you will end up with and the reason for this will become clear soon enough ...

Create a Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer on the copied image and when the dialogue comes up lower the Saturation slider to -100 (outlined in red). This will remove all of the color and create a greyscale image. Click on the General tab and call this new layer "Film" then Click OK.


Hue and Saturation Saturation = -100	Layers Palette Film

Once you do all of that this is what you will have on your desktop ... I'm sure you can't help but notice that one of the images is now black and white ...

Activate the Background layer and create another Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer above the Background and below the first Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer. Click the General Tab, change the Blending Mode to Color (Legacy) and name this layer "Filter" (if you don't change the Blending Mode to Color you can move the Sliders around until you wear out the tip of your pen and nothing will happen - change the Blend Mode).

Now here is the new layers palette

Return to the Adjustment Tab and now you are ready to go - finally. Just so you know - I made a Paint Shop Pro Script to do all of this easily and quickly. You can download a copy of the Script for your own use.

Double click on the Filter layer to bring up that Hue and Saturation dialogue once again. Now we can start doing some amazing adjustments to our Paint Shop greyscale image.

The conversion can be done two different ways. The first method creates fabulous black and white images and the second one goes beyond fabulous ...

Method One

To adjust the greyscale image all you have to do is move the Hue slider back and forth. Make sure that "Preview on Image" is checked so that any adjustment you make will show on the image.

The range of different looks you can make doing this one simple adjustment is absolutely enormous! Here are just a few as an example ...


Hue Saturation Greyscale Original Conversion	Hue/Saturation = 0

Hue Saturation Greyscale First Conversion	Hue/Saturation = -43

Hue Saturation Greyscale Second Conversion	Hue/Saturation = +71

Each one is different - sometimes the difference is very subtle but they are all different nonetheless. They will probably look much more interesting and dramatic on your monitor than on these tiny little images.

Play about with the Hue settings until you get one you really like and then you are done.

The Same Technique
With Even More Control

This one is the same up until you start adjusting the Hue slider - and here is the difference - rather than leave the Edit menu at Master, you can drop down that list and modify the Hue of individual colors! Just think about that - you can adjust each color by itself!

That means you can choose how the following colors are converted to black and white ...

Red
Yellow
Green
Cyan
Blue
Magenta

And here is a screen shot of the dialogue ...

So what you do is select the first color (RED) and slowly more the Hue slider around and watch the image. You will see the areas that contained Red (and only red) in the original color image start to change.

This is totally amazing!

Remember you have the original color image and the conversion image both on your desktop? This is where you use the original color image as the guide. Look closely at the original color image to determine which colors are there and then watch that part of the image as you change the hue.

The original color image is your guide to the conversion.

paint shop greyscale hue 2

You notice that little band between the inner and outer circle? If you grab the ends of the little band (I am sure it has a name) you can make the little band longer and shorter and this also changes the way the Reds (in this instance) are modified. Each one of the six colors in the drop down list has this little additional adjuster.

See - there really are infinite adjustments in this conversion.

An Example

Here is an example of a conversion done with the dual Hue and Saturation method. The picture was taken at Notting Hill in London by Otis from Finland.

Notting Hill - London

You know what - I can write pages and pages of information on this hue saturation greyscale technique but that would not serve you as well as one quick video, would it?

So here is the video of these techniques ...