How to Use the Black & White Adjustment Layer in Adobe Photoshop

See Adobe Photoshop: Tips and Tricks for similar articles.

The Black & White Adjustment Layer allows you to easily make a color image appear grayscale and then apply other effects from there.

This feature works the same in all recent versions of Adobe Photoshop: CS5, CS6, and Creative Cloud (CC).

  1. In the Layers Panel, click the Adjustment Layer button Adjustment Layer Button and select Black & White.
  2. In the Adjustment Panel, check the box for Tint. The tint option creates the illusion of a duotone image. Black & White Adjustment Panel
  3. Click the swatch next to Tint to open the Color Picker. When the Color Picker opens, adjust the RGB color values to choose your desired tint color, then click OK. Color Picker
  4. Uncheck Tint to return to the grayscale version.
  5. Press the letter D on your keyboard to reset your foreground and background colors to black and white.
  6. Click on the layer mask thumbnail on the Black & White 1 layer in the Layers Panel to make it active, which is indicated by the corner brackets around the thumbnail.
  7. Select the Gradient ToolGradient Tool. In the image below, we went to the right edge of the image, then held down the Shift key to keep the direction horizontal while dragging straight across to the left edge of the image. This technique reveals color on the left side of the image. Create Gradient

Related Articles

  1. ChatGPT Explains Photoshop Neural Filters
  2. Kerning, Tracking, and Leading
  3. How to Create a Solid-Color Fill Layer in Adobe Photoshop
  4. How to Change Color in Parts of an Image in Adobe Photoshop
  5. How to Create a 3D Sphere in Adobe Photoshop
  6. How to Apply a Perspective Warp in Adobe Photoshop
  7. How to Use the Black & White Adjustment Layer in Adobe Photoshop (this article)
  8. How to Create Image Slices Using Existing Guides in Adobe Photoshop
  9. How to Use a Gradient Mask in Adobe Photoshop
  10. How to Save an Action Set in Adobe Photoshop
  11. How to Create 3D Extruded Text in Adobe Photoshop
  12. Convert Point Text to Paragraph Text in Photoshop CC
  13. How to Prepare an Image for Print Production in Adobe Photoshop
  14. How to Use the Magic Wand in Adobe Photoshop
  15. How to Apply an Iris Blur Effect in Adobe Photoshop
  16. How to Apply Lighting Effects in Adobe Photoshop
  17. How to Use the Clone Source Panel in Adobe Photoshop
  18. How to Create a 3D Postcard in Adobe Photoshop
  19. How to Create a Custom Warp in Adobe Photoshop
  20. How to Use Variable Fonts in Adobe Photoshop
  21. How to Apply a Tilt-Shift Blur Effect in Adobe Photoshop
  22. How to Use Panels in Adobe Photoshop
  23. How to Use the Curvature Pen Tool in Adobe Photoshop
  24. How to Use Retouching and Restoration in Adobe Photoshop
  25. How to Work with Stroke Smoothing in Adobe Photoshop
  26. How to Use Brush Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop
  27. How to Insert Action Stops in Adobe Photoshop
  28. How to Copy CSS for Text and Shape Layers in Adobe Photoshop
  29. How to Apply and Copy Layer Styles in Adobe Photoshop
  30. How to Apply Content-Aware Scaling in Adobe Photoshop
  31. How to Use Quick Share in Adobe Photoshop
  32. How to Use Guides and Organization in Adobe Photoshop
  33. How to Place and Align Thumbnails on a Page in Adobe Photoshop
  34. How to Use Blending Modes for Simple Color Correction in Adobe Photoshop