• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Photography Concentrate

Learn Photography Faster!

  • Blog
  • Learn
    • Camera Skills
    • Light Skills
    • Composition Skills
    • Photo Editing Skills – Lighroom
    • Creativity Field Guide
    • Shoot Awesome Video
    • Pro – Build Your Business
      • Photography Income Formula
      • Simple Wedding Photography
      • Awesome Album Design Skills
      • Really Easy Retouching
  • About
  • Free Resources
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Lightroom and Post Processing / Before / After: Black and White Portraits

Before / After: Black and White Portraits

Updated on March 17, 2020 by Rob Lim

Lightroom Black and White Portrait

Creating great looking black and whites in Lightroom is a lot of fun. It’s a rewarding challenge finding the right balance of tones. Here are a couple portraits with black and white conversions and some notes about how I edited them.

Original photo straight out of camera: ISO 200, 35mm (50mm equivalent), f/2.0, 1/250s, Fuji X-T2. Shot in raw compressed format.

Lightroom Editing Tips

After Editing in Lightroom (about 5 minutes of work):

Lightroom Black and White Portrait

Notes on the edit:

The first thing I did for this conversion is add a large soft radial filter in order to darken the edges of the photo (vignette). This helps just generally darken the background, and create more contrast with his brighter skin tones. I like using the radial filter because it really gives you a lot of control over the placement of the vignette.

The next thing I did was work through the Basic panel in order to fine tune the contrast of the tones in the image. I think it’s easy to add too much contrast to black and white photos at the expense of detail. So my goal was to get pretty bright skin tones without losing detail, while still maintaining good overall contrast. For this I find reducing the highlights helps preserve detail, while bumping the whites helps give a more natural look to the brighter areas.

Lightroom Basic Panel Adjustments

Tip: Lightroom is a big program with tons of tools and features, but the most powerful are probably just the adjustments you can make under the Basic panel. When editing an image I spend the majority of my time in the Basic panel fine tuning exposure, contrast, tones, and white balance. The basic panel might seem simple (and it is!), but it’s the most convenient, powerful, and fastest way to improve your photos!

After the basic panel adjustments I also added an adjustment brush mask to add a bit of extra clarity and a shadow bump to just his eyes.

He also had a bit of a cold, so I did a small bit of retouching around his nose (using the spot removal tool in Lightroom).

And that’s it!

Here’s another photo that I edited along side it with the same approach as above.

Original photo straight out of camera: ISO 200, 35mm (50mm equivalent), f/2.0, 1/320s, Fuji X-T2. Shot in raw compressed format.

Before / After

And after editing in Lightroom (probably less time since I copied settings from the previous photo as a starting point)

Lightroom Black And White Portrait

The photos were taken from slightly different angles and had different exposures so I couldn’t do the exact same processing on both but my goal with the editing was to make them look as similar as possible with respect to the tones. Overall I like the skin tones I achieved in the first photo better. Depth of field is shallower in this photo because there’s less distance between the subject and the camera – which has the effect of reducing texture in his skin and I think as a result the tonal gradient in this shot feels a little less natural (or less to my preference anyway – for some styles of photography like beauty shots this would work out well). Personally I like to see more texture and tone in the skin.

For this shot I also added an adjustment brush mask adding clarity and a shadow bump to just his eyes. It’s probably a bit too strong.

I had originally processed these photos quickly just to be posted on Instagram. If I was printing them I would spend more time fine tuning the clarity/sharpness in the eyes to make sure it was as natural looking as possible. I would also spend a bit more time in the Basic panel fine tuning tones, especially for that second shot.

 

If you want a quick dose of black and white editing make sure to check out our Before/After: Black & White tutorial. It’s a video screen cast tutorial where you can can see the process (start to finish) that I take converting 10 photos to black and white using Lightroom. It’s pretty incredible value for just $19.

Filed Under: Lightroom and Post Processing

About Rob Lim

Hi there, I’m Rob! I’m a photography ninja here at Photography Concentrate. I love all things photography: shooting, teaching and always learning more! If I’m not reading up on the latest photography news, or studying a technique, I’m probably reading a book or planning our next adventure!

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hi there!


We're The Photography Concentrate Team: Daniel, Kaitlyn and Kristal. Think of us as your photo friends – we’re here to help you take great photos, and have a ton of fun together while we’re at it!

Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Browse the Archives

Footer

Navigation

  • Blog
  • Learn
  • About

Connect

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Newsletter

Important Stuff

  • Comment Policy
  • Material Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Earnings Disclaimer

Disclaimer

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Additionally, we participate in other affiliate programs and sometimes get a commission through purchases made through our links.

Return to top of page
Copyright © 2020 Photography Concentrate

newsletterpopupheader

Get FREE photography training today!

Subscribe to our newsletter and learn how to take awesome photos, and get tons of free stuff to make it faster, and easier!
Join today and get instant access!

Join our +48,000 photographer pals, and get our very best content and freebies delivered straight to your inbox!
Register To This Secret Photography Training (FREE but seats are limited!)
How To Start & Grow
A Professional Photography Business
And Get Paid For Your Photos In The Next 30 Days
This method works even if you don’t have expensive gear and don’t want to chase clients!

We like to keep it a small group so we can engage together.
Our webinars are always filled to the last seat.
ONLY reserved seats will gain access to the room!

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkView our Privacy Policy