[R127] 🥾 Three Lightroom Sliders Fix Black And White ⚫⚪

Removing colour forces you to see light, shadow, and form without distraction or excuses. (my favourite quote this week)

Hello Hello 👋

Quick Catch-Up From Last Week

A quick personal update first,

Don’t forget to check Photo of the week down below.

Now onto something we both love – travel.

Black and white photography intimidates people.

You convert your colour shot to monochrome and it looks flat. Lifeless. Like someone sucked the soul out of a decent photo.

So you start moving sliders randomly, hoping something clicks. It doesn’t.

Here’s what nobody tells you: three specific sliders make or break black and white conversions. Not ten. Not the entire panel. Three.

Travel shows the world’s colours; photography teaches you its tones.

Let me show you which ones actually matter.

🚀 The Foundation: Getting Black Points Right

Most black and white photos aren’t actually black and white. They’re fifty shades of gray pretending to be monochrome.

You need true black in your image. Real black. Not dark gray.

Here’s how: grab the Blacks slider. Hold Alt (Option on Mac) while dragging it. Your screen goes mostly white with colored blotches showing where blacks are clipping.

You want some clipping. Not everywhere, but in the deepest natural shadows where black belongs.

No true black means no depth. Your image looks washed out before you even start editing.

🚀 The Three Sliders That Matter ⚫⚪

⛵ Clarity

This is your midtone contrast. It adds punch without destroying highlight or shadow detail.

Clarity targets the middle gray areas and makes texture pop. Push it right and watch your image come alive. That’s the difference between a photo and a flat scan.

Texture slider is different—it pulls out fine detail. But Clarity gives you that broader structural contrast that makes black and white work.

Light teaches you to see; shadows teach you to feel.

⛵ Contrast

Basic but critical. Separates tones, adds definition, gives you that “this is an actual photograph” feeling.

After setting your blacks and whites, Contrast is what makes the image feel finished. Too little and it’s muddy. Too much and you lose subtlety.

Most people don’t push it far enough in black and white. Color images can look over-contrasted easily. Monochrome needs more aggressive contrast to work.

⛵ Dehaze

This one’s tricky. A little goes a long way.

Dehaze works magic on flat skies and atmospheric scenes. But overdo it and everything looks harsh and fake.

Use it subtly. If you’re pushing Dehaze past +20, you’re probably ruining your image.

🚀 The Two-Slider Trick (My Favourite)

Want instant punch in your black and white shots?

Drop Exposure significantly. Then crank Whites way up.

This spreads your tonal range wide. More separation between blacks, midtones, highlights, and whites means better definition everywhere.

Compared to just adding Contrast, this Exposure/Whites method gives cleaner results with more control.

Refine with Contrast afterward, but start with this foundation.

🚀 The Workflow or Steps That Actually Works

Stop jumping around randomly. Follow this order:

1. Exposure – Get overall brightness right
2. Whites – Brighten as much as possible without blowing detail (use Alt/Option to check)
3. Blacks – Add true black where it belongs (Alt/Option again)
4. Highlights – Recover sky detail if needed
5. Shadows – Lift dark areas that need it
6. Contrast – Add midtone punch
7. Clarity – Define textures and structure

This sequence builds your image properly. Each step supports the next. (Sometime I touch exposure into very last).

Monochrome isn’t nostalgia, it’s choosing to show emotion through tone instead of hue.

⛵ What I Actually Do Most of the Time

Convert to black and white using a profile or preset as starting point. Never just desaturate.

Set black point using Alt key. Adjust whites the same way.

Push Contrast harder than feels comfortable. Black and white can take it.

Add Clarity until texture emerges, then back off slightly.

Touch Dehaze only if the image actually needs it.

Add grain at the end. Always. Even subtle grain makes digital black and white feel more natural.

🚀 What About Texture and Dehaze?

Texture brings out fine detail. Great for rough surfaces, fabric, skin texture. But it doesn’t have the broad impact Clarity does.

Dehaze removes atmospheric haze or adds mood depending on direction. Perfect for misty landscapes or flat overcast days. Just don’t abuse it.

Both are finishing touches, not foundations.

Note: Always keep an eye on histogram. Your eyes can lie. The histogram doesn’t. Check for clipping, check for tonal distribution, adjust accordingly.

⚫⚪ Bonus Tip: After finishing your black and white edit, walk away for an hour. Come back with fresh eyes and check if you over-processed. Black and white editing makes it easy to push too far without realizing it. That break gives you perspective. Also, print a test on regular paper, prints reveal problems that screens hide. If it looks good printed, it’s actually good.

Black and white photography is about tonal relationships. These three sliders – Clarity, Contrast, Dehaze, control those relationships better than anything else in Lightroom.

The best black and white photos make you forget color ever existed in that moment.

🟢 Until the next one, Keep chasing horizons, one frame at a time and let’s be mindful of our environment.

Cheers!!

🍾 Photo of the week

For Print of any photos please reply here with photo link/url.

🚀 Planning Trip, Check 🔻

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⛳️ Other Fun Stuff

• ✔️ New prints are available in the shop, check it out.
• ✔️ Rahul’s Newsletter – Learning & Sharing Concepts Beyond Text Books. The JustDraft is a free newsletter to receive ideas shared with 2400+ people each week directly to your inbox. Join now to start practising change.
• ✔️ Buy Ready To Use Itineraries – Hand curated travel plans, maps, guides, photo editing presets and many more.
• ✔️ UK Weekender – Wondering where to go next weekend. Join Weekender and receive travel insights from the UK, epic photography spots every week in your inbox.

🚀 Here are the tools I found interesting in last few weeks and still exploring

• 🎋 Magnific is an AI-powered image upscaler and enhancer that allows users to increase the resolution and detail of any image. It can also add more details by increasing its “Creativity” slider.
• 🎋 Pixelcut’s AI Photo Shoot tool is a virtual photo studio that allows users to quickly and easily create professional-quality product photos with AI-generated backgrounds.
• 🎋 Descript makes editing video and audio as easy as editing text. Record, transcribe, edit, and publish in one tool.

📆 Product update/offer

In this section, I share any cool new product, feature released in past few weeks or newsletter subscriber only offers

🎁 Luminar Neo Cross-device Perpetual license (Luminar Neo + Luminar Mobile) for $159

🎁 [Offer for you] Epidemic Sound introduced Sync to video – Cool feature if you want to quickly make video with great sound collection.

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