Using Paint Shop Pro Photo XI to create Black and White Photos

Some of the coolest features of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI are the new Photo Effects. I have been playing around with the Black and White Film effect lately. Effectively converting a color digital image to black and white takes more than just a greyscale converter. You can do it, but the results usually won’t be the best.

As a demonstration, here is an example image of my son climbing an indoor rock wall.

Using the Black and White Film Effect in Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI I tried different Filter Colors to see which would create a black and white image that had good contrast.

In this case, I did not adjust the strength. I ended up choosing the green filter because I thought it gave the image good contrast without making it too dark, or too light.

Here is the image after converting with Paint Shop Pro Photo XI Black and White Film Effect and the green Filter Color choice.

Now lets compare that to a greyscale conversion done in Paint Shop Pro Photo XI.

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI does a good job with the greyscale conversion. If you look closely you’ll see that the greyscale image is muddied and has lost some of the detail in his hair.