brainstorms

Thursday November 24, 2005

gimp notes on converting color images to b/w

a recent comment on my previous entry about b/w conversion prompted me to revisit the topic. i was wrong about gimp not having lab conversion; in 2.2, it is a part of image decomposition which also conveniently converts channels to layers. gimp also has a channel mixer as a part of the filter suite, but it may as well not exist. no serious photographer i know of would waste their time trying to mix colors [or monochrome] with a postage-stamp sized preview. [i know this will be fixed with 2.4] why is this not a part of the color tools? [this brings up the topic of gimp workflow and functional organization. it is very hard to argue against fifteen years of photoshop use. if gimp is to be a competitive choice for photographers, graphic designers and comic book colorists, it has to somehow address their photoshop work habits or offer very good reasons why they should change those habits.]

b/w conversion of this image was done with gimp, using lab mode decomposition. i have deleted unnecessary layers, and applied levels and curves to the luminance layer. [i tried but gave up channel mixer technique with monochrome.]

i have not yet looked around for any script-fu to do b/w conversion.