Convert color images to black and white images with selectable grayscale

Selective Color to Gray

Selective Color to Gray (SC2G) is a unique feature that enables the controlled conversion from colors to gray. The colors of the image can be converted into self-selected grayscales, which means the user has the possibility to make the original colors clearly distinguishable in the grayscale image. Black and white images look much more expressive.

The clear differentiation between colors of the original color image can get lost in an automatic conversion process, because the resulting gray shades may be adjacent. In magazines and newspapers this often results in gray images, which do not have very detailed shades. SilverFast SC2G (Selective Color to gray) can maintain the gray shade differentiation by controlling the conversion process. For all six colors (Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow) the user can control into what shade of gray the color will be converted. Since the whole process is interactively monitoring the final gray image, the user quickly achieves the desired result.

SC2G Image Example

An image of downtown Kiel. Using a standard conversion, the image appears consistent, but rather neutral. By selectively adjusting some colors, the resulting grayscale image appears definitely more dynamic and dramatic. In this example, yellows and greens have been brightened while blues have been darkened.

Further SC2G Image Example

The sky appears too dark with the standard color to gray conversion. Using SC2G the sky can be selectively made brighter, without changing the brightness of other objects of the sample. After changing into Grayscale mode and activating the SC2G tool, click into the sky of the sample. Now we want to make the gray representing the sky brighter by using the marked slider control in the SC2G dialog.

My customers often want their images in color and in addition in black and white. Therefore, I take my images in color and convert them to black and white. Often, the results were not satisfactory, because different colors have been converted to a very similar gray. Wow, using SilverFast SC2G I can now easily determine myself, which gray tones my colors shall take.

Rebecca Reinhardt, Photographer