Changing Colors In A Black and White Image

There was a little dialogue on my Facebook about my images. The friend was wondering what type of camera I was using. On their last comment, I decided to make a quick screencast to show what I meant by the colors in a RAW black and white image using Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

Friend: “These are great pics. What kind of camera do you use”?
HM: “It really isn’t the camera”!

“You can take awesome pictures with a point-and-shoot (as some of these are) or an OLD oatmeal tub with the right size pinhole (as I have done before)”. “What matters is 1)your eye to see the shot, 2) the technique to get the shot and 3) knowledge in the details needed to produce the final image”.

“That being said, my main camera is a Canon Rebel (for now)”. “I love the layout of the controls on it”.

HM: “Here is an example (both examples are in this album)”:

“This is a shot that is nice because it has my family in it, other than that, it is in no way an “artsy” image” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2308627&l=9b0df11833&id=557537005

“This is the same shot, except getting up at 5:30am in the morning just to find premium shots (the watermark doesn’t count as part of the shot) at the premium hours (dusk and dawn)”. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2312519&l=20bfe0ad63&id=557537005

“I will say that SLR’s are way more configurable than a point-and-shoot… and, for me, it is a must to shoot in RAW as opposed to JPG”.

“My Longwinded answer that, I hope, will inspire others to create with what they have”.

HM:  ”Last comment”… ”As an example of #3 as you mentioned from my list… I deemed that this final image had to be B&W”… “I think it works, although I would love to play with the clarity, contrast and move the colors (they are still there) around to totally change the shades of B&W, I figured a lot of that would be lost in the Facebook compression they use on my images”.

“Here is the link”: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2313651&l=c7193eabe1&id=557537005

Friend: “Ok, I saw the pic, B&W, but it is interesting that I did not see that the colors were still there until you mentioned it”. “Very creative”.

HM: “here is a link to a video I made for you on what I meant by changing the colors in black and white”.