Lightroom isn't always the most intuitive program. If you have problems getting an image to import, try these steps:
• Right-click an image file and select Lightroom as the program to open the file. The image type can be just about any image type, including JPG and CR2, which is Canon's native raw format.
• If the Import
button is grayed-out, make sure checkbox for Include in import
is checked. If that doesn't make the Import
clickable, then make sure the File Handling | Don't Import Suspected Duplicates
is unchecked.
• Once you've successfully imported a file, click on the Develop
button.
• The developing tools generally are within the right panel of Lightroom, depending on how your Lightroom window is set up. You should be able to scroll up and down that panel to see a histogram and various options for adjusting exposure, contrast, sharpening, etc.
Import
button is grayed out, as it is on the bottom right of the photo above, try checking the Include in Import
box near the bottom. That should make the Import
button active.Within the developing panel, you can toggle between the Treatment: Color
and Treatment: Black and White
buttons to get a preview of what your color image will look like in black and white, without any enhancements. Mac users can toggle these options with a shortcut of Control + v.
Develop
mode. The right panel is scrollable and offers sliders for editing exposure, contrast, sharpness, etc. In the right panel, under the histogram, you can toggle between Color
and Black & White
to get a preview of what your image will look like in black and white.Before converting your image to black and white, make sure it looks good in color. Try cleaning up the image a bit in Develop
mode, playing around with the sliders for exposure, constrast, highlights and shadows, etc. Once the image looks good to you in color, you're ready to convert it to black and white.
There are different ways to convert a photo. One way is to stay in Treatment: Color
mode and, under the HSL panel, and lower the Saturation
slider for each of the colors.
HSL / Color / B & W
editing module. Here you can click on Saturation
and then move each of the color sliders to -100. Then, you can click on the Luminance
tab and experiment with those sliders.After you're done removing the saturation, you can click on the Luminance
tab and experiment with the sliders there.
Luminance
tab and experiment with those sliders. Although your image appears to be in black and white, Lightroom still has access to the color information and can make adjustments as you move around each of the sliders under Luminance
.You also can of course use the other tools in the right panel to adjust contrast, exposure, add some vignetting, etc.
When you have a black-and-white image you're happy with, you'll need to save and export it. File / Export
will open the export dialog box.