A couple weeks ago, I posted a simple how-I-edit-photo’s tutorial and included a basic photo edit action (Frustration with a freebie). Turns out, you guys love that! We’ve had a rough week, nothing dramatic, just rough, and I woke up this morning to no new photo’s magically on my camera. Luckily I have a Dane. He happily poses for photo’s so we ran upstairs to our “winter garden” (aka: 4-season room) to take some quick photo’s.
It was quickly apparent that the rough week had an effect on Dane. He looks a little worn out & tired in the photo’s, really more than a 9-year-old should. Still, I can’t help but love all photo’s of my baby. I didn’t want to just delete these because they weren’t perfect. I also didn’t have a ton of time to edit and, frankly, sometimes it’s okay to let the photo’s tell the real story. In this case, we had a rough week.
I ran my basic photo edit action from Frustration with a freebie, and realized I did not like the way the story was told in color. I know several ways to quickly convert a photo from color to black & white. The first way, the easiest way: Image>>Adjustments>>Black & White created a flat image. Sometimes it’s what we want, and I did include this in the updated Basic Photo Action as: Black & White I. I prefer the second way, adding a gradient map in the layers palette. I added this in the updated Basic Photo Action as Black & White II.
You can see my results below, and the before & after on my favorite photo from this morning.
You can no longer downloaded the updated Basic Photo Edit action.
![](https://blog.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/sooc.jpg)
SOOC – Dane looks so tired
![](https://blog.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/black-white-I.jpg)
Using the built-in B&W function in photoshop (included as action Black & White I)
![](https://blog.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/black-white-II.jpg)
Using the action Black & White II, applies a b&w gradient map.
![](https://blog.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_9435-copy.jpg)
Edited only using the action, decreasing the Levels layer to 9%.
Wow! Fantastic result with your action! Dane is adorable, even when he’s tired.
[…] First pick your photo. I picked the new favorite above & then I ran my (free) Black & White Action: […]
Great action result!
Gloria
[…] pick your photo. I picked the new favorite above & then I ran my (free) Black & White Action, you can still choose to run the action on color photo’s! In fact I loved the […]