When shooting b&w film photographers found that shooting through a color filter changed the look of the final image. For example shooting through a yellow filter slightly darkened blue skies showed clouds more clearly and made landscape photos look more realistic.
Shooting through an orange filter darkened the sky even more making clouds stand out more and increasing contrast between shadowed areas lit by blue sky and highlight areas lit by orangeish sunlight. Finally shooting through a red filter produced and almost black sky and very dark shadows. A high contrast dramatic photo. A green filter lightened foliage and could improve the rendition of skin tones. All in all we had a lot of control over the final black & white image by shooting through colored filters.
Now comes digital and we now have an unlimited number of colored filters by applying mathematical changes to the levels of Red, Green, and Blue components that make up a modern color digital image. Some photo software let you apply colored filters just as was done in film day.
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The photos here show what is accomplished by Photoshop Elements with Enhance>Convert to Black and<br /> White.
The screen here shows adjustments allowed by Elements. It shows Scenic Landscape selected and the top B&W image is the result of that selection. By sliding the Green slider to the right in the next image the green was lightened and sliding the Blue slider left darkened the sky. Below Vivid Landscape was selected and the blue slider was again slid slightly to the left to darken the sky.
In Photoshop Elements six effects are included. Each of them set the four sliders to preset positions. After selecting the one you like best you can then tweek the sliders to see if you can make an image that you like better.
Most current photo editing software now has similar black and white conversions that allow you a great deal of freedom to come up with an image you like.
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