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CANONSCHOOL
SOFTWARE
SOLUTIONS
Get to grips with Canon’s free Raw image organizing, editing
and sharing software – Digital Photo Professional 4
PETER TRAVERS
CANON EXPERT
Peter’s been a passionate
photographer for well over
20 years. He’s worked on
PhotoPlus since the very
first issue, back in 200 7,
and has been the magazine’s
editor for the past six years.01 DESATURATE THE SHOT
Click our mono_start.CR2 image file’s
thumbnail and choose View>Edit Image
Window. Use our annotation’s settings
to desaturate the shot and adjust its
tones to create a strong contrast with
some clipped shadows and highlights.02 FILTER EFFECT
Set the Filter Effect drop-down menu
to Red; this darkens the blues of the sky,
helping the lighter greyscale tones of the
tree stand out more, and helps reveal
subtle cloud texture and detail that
was lost in the initial mono conversion.03 TONING EFFECT
Experiment with different colour tints
by using the Toning Effect drop-down
menu. Green might suit a natural
subject like our park scene. Sepia
helps give a warmer, friendlier vintage
vibe to the monochrome conversion.STEP BY STEP ADD A SPLASH OF COLOUR
Use the Toning Effect filter to alter the mood by adding subtle colour tints
ocial media is
swamped with
vibrant images vying
for attention,
whether that’s on a
Instagram feed or a
Facebook page. By dropping
a black-and-white image into
the mix you can make your
work stand out from the crowd,
even in a thumbnail. A
well-processed monochrome
image can also suit particular
subjects. By throwing out thescene’s distracting colour
information you can create
contrasting greyscale tones
that help the eye perceive
contrasting shapes, for
example the curved lines of the
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in our image.
Making an effective mono
conversion can be a challenge.
If you simply desaturate the
shot then you can end up with
a drab wash of greyscale tones
that lack contrast. Your PC’smonitor may not be calibrated
correctly, so what looks like
pure white on screen may
print out as a dull grey.
Fortunately, Digital Photo
Professional 4 packs enough
tools to help you guarantee a
mono print that boasts a
striking contrast, featuring
both white highlights and
black shadows. We’ll look at
how the threshold clipping
warning helps you ensure
maximum contrast withoutlosing important detail. We’ll
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helps you lighten or darken
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on the image’s original
colours. We’ll also show you
how to combine global
exposure adjustments with
selective tonal tweaks, so you
can reveal detail where it’s
needed and overcome
in-camera exposure problems,
leading to a striking and
effective mono conversion.Better black and whites
Cre ate striking high- contrast monochrome shots with help from clipping warnings
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