How to Create a Surreal Black and White Effect

Black and White Photography  •  Photography Tips  •  Photoshop Tutorials

Before Changes

After Changes

This tutorial is to help you learn how to create a black and white diffused glow effect that can create a surreal scene.  This tutorial couldn’t have been made without the help of Dan Buxton.  Here’s what we did with this photo:

1. First we applied a Diffuse Glow Filter (Filter>Distort>Diffuse Glow) with the following settings:

Graininess: 5
Glow Amount: 8
Clear Amount: 11

2. Then we applied a New Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer) with the following settings:

100% Red
Monochrome Selected

3. Then we applied a New Levels Adjustment Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels) and pulled in the left slider or shortened the color level range.

4. This is trickiest step, first we created a new blank layer over the other layers.

5. Then we took a paintbrush with a low opacity and carefully painted the rose pink on the new blank layer.