How do I convert a layer to grayscale in Photoshop without doing the entire image?

[wmilberry]

I've been taking color photos and converting some of them to grayscale in Photoshop. The problem is sometimes I would like to save a single .psd file with the original color photo on one layer, and a black and white copy of it in another layer.



Desaturating an image or layer gives different results from Image > Mode > Grayscale, so I don't want to use that. Is there a way I can get the same effect as converting to grayscale without actually converting to grayscale (or desaturating as that doesn't give the exact same results.)



I guess I could convert to grayscale, copy the image to the clipboard, undo (back to RGB color), then paste the gray clipboard image in as a new layer ... but I was wondering if there was some operation I didn't know about.



Any B+W photographers here know?



Thanks,

[Studioso]

there are a many ways to convert a picture to B&W, but desaturating is usually the worst one.

check out this article which appeared on PopPhoto recently:

http://www.popphoto.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=1418



personally, I like the virtual photographer. it's a free plug-in for PS and it's easy and very flexible.

[DrJalapeno]

Here's a much better way to convert color images to b&w in PS--



Color->B&W Steps



After you're done, save this file as a .PSD and all layers will be intact, including the original color Background Layer.



If you choose to stick with desaturating your image (..and we hope you don't ), then simply choose Layer->Duplicate Layer before you desaturate and save as a .PSD file. Again, you'll have the original Background Layer stored with the b&w image.



As Studioso mentioned, check out the free Virtual Photographer plugin for some excellent b&w renderings.

[wmilberry]

Thanks for the great tips and links. I had installed Virtual Photographer a while ago but forgot about it ^_^; I'm not too big into plugins, I like trying to get what I want out of the basic functions, but I'll play with it some more.



Don't worry, I never flat out just desaturate! :-)

[drh681]

you can also apply a black to white gradient map to a single layer.



and when you use the gradient editor, you can set the black and white points as shades of gray and extend or contract the middle tones.

[bsphoto]

How about a color mixer adjustment layer? You could turn it on and off as needed.