How to achieve tonal contrast black and white image effect

Hi!

First, you need to have a photo with good light and dark definition. See the shadows in the faces?

I played around with the adjustment layers and this is what I was able to come up with. I didn't use Threshold as suggested above, but I used posterize. Here are the steps and here is the results:

1. Add a Curves Adjustment Layer to give your photo more contrast and define the areas you want to be light and dark.

2. I added a Black and White Adjustment Layer and played with the sliders to get the effect I wanted. Usually your facial tonew will be in the reds and yellows. You can see that every other color was pulled to black where the yellow and red (somewhat) was pulled to the white.

3. Then I used a Posterize Adjustment Layer and increased it just a little. It will turn lighter areas gray which you can use to your advantage in the next step...

4. The last Layer I added was a Levels Adjustment Layer and moved the black and white sliders into the histogram to turn those gray areas to black and white. And here is the result.

I am sure there are multiple ways to do this, and this is just one. But it gets the effect you are looking for. Let us know if you have any questions.

Michelle

Explore the other Adjustment Layers... like Threshold.