The Robert Shults B&W Conversion Action for Photoshop Elements

I could write up a long & boring tutorial about the B&W conversion method that professional photographer Robert Shults uses in his stunning photography.  Or I could just write up an action that works in Photoshop Elements.  Hmmmm, not much of a choice there!

Texas Chicks is concluding the series of posts about Robert Shults with this action.  In honor of Robert’s gallery exhibition which opens this weekend, I am contributing 10% of my gross income from sales on this website  during the next week to the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless.

If you purchased a Texas Chicks subscription, use your login information to download the action here:

Otherwise, buy the action here for $15.  You can also purchase a subscription to Texas Chicks Blogs and Pics for $6 per month and receive all the actions I publish! After you sign up, return to this page and click the download link.

That $6 subscription price is an introductory offer only and will increase when I release my next action!

This action puts you in complete control of how each separate element in your image is converted to black and white.  It does require work on your part and your image will still be in color until you mask in the appropriate black and white versions for each element of your photo.

About the Channels Black and White Conversion Action

• Robert shoots all images in color (Raw mode)
• He performs global edits in Lightroom, while the image is still in color
• He exports a 16 bit TIFF file to Photoshop and extracts each color channel to a separate layer using the Channel Mixer
• His next step is to mask these three channel layers to blend in the various black and white layers to taste
• The final step is to dodge and burn the tones using our old favorite, the non-destructive Soft Light layer filled with 50% gray using a soft brush at about 10% opacity.

Since Photoshop Elements doesn’t have channels, how is it possible to convert this process into an Elements friendly action?

Magic, of course.

Just kidding.  This action sneaks the 3 color channels right into Photoshop Elements for you to blend as best suits your image.  Note that it’s not possible to use 16 bit files in PSE.

Thank you, and have a good weekend!