Create stunning mono shots with RAW

1. Reduce saturation
To start, drag the Saturation slider to the left to create a mono version. This creates an unflattering, flat-lit mono portrait that lacks contrast. Set the Saturation slider back to 0 and get ready to create a mono conversion with better shadows, highlights and midtones, and much more impact.

2. Spot clipped highlights
Before converting the shot to mono you'll need to enhance its contrast. You can see from the red section of the Histogram graph that some of the highlights in this image are in danger of being clipped. Check the Highlight Clipping Warning box at the top right of the Histogram and you'll see the clipped pixels appear as patches of red.

3. Reduce exposure
Although the RAW shot has been overexposed, it contains enough information for you to alter the exposure and restore detail to the clipped pixels. Drag the Exposure slider left to -0.35. The clipping warning will vanish and the highlights in the Histogram will slide left towards the midtone section of the graph, revealing more detail in your portrait.

4. Improve contrast
To give the mono conversion process a wider range of tones to work with, drag the Recovery slider to the right until it has a value of +40. This restores more detail to highlight areas such as the face, the whites of the eyes and the teeth.

5. Enhance the eyes
The eyes are an important part of any portrait, and you're often drawn to them first. For a high-impact mono conversion you can enhance the contrast between the eyes and the dark lashes. By dragging the Blacks slider to 15 you can strengthen the intensity of the dark eyelashes without altering the midtones and highlights of the overall image.

6. Colour and mono
The black-and-white conversion process that we'll look at later in this tutorial can convert different colours into a wide range of greyscale tones. By boosting the intensity of the imageís colours you can give the mono conversion process more information to work with, resulting in a wider tonal range of blacks, greys and whites.

7. Stronger skin tones
The Saturation slider increases all the colours in a portrait equally, but this can create unhealthy looking orange skin. Leave Saturation at the default setting of 0 and slide Vibrance to +43. This enhances the portrait's overall colours but also works more gently on the skin tones.

8. Remove imperfections
To create a more flattering portrait, zoom into 100%. If your subject is having a bad skin day, grab the Retouch tool and set it to Heal. Click and drag the cursor to draw a red circle around an unwanted spot. Position the green circle over a clear patch of skin. The clear skin will be cloned over the spot, removing it seamlessly.

9. Convert to greyscale
Click on the HSL/Greyscale tab and check the Convert To Greyscale box. The Greyscale Mix sliders will automatically try and create a shot with a healthy range of shadows, midtones and highlights. Hit Default to set them to 0.

10. Add sparkle to the eyes
To enhance the contrast within the skin tones, drag Reds to -11 and oranges to -15. To create contrast between skin and hair, drag Yellows to -27. There's a hint of blue in the eyes, so drag Blue up to +28 to brighten them up. By adjusting the colour sliders you can really enhance the contrast between the hair, skin and eyes of your subject.

11. Create a vignette
Click on the Lens Corrections tab. The Vignette slider is designed to lighten or darken the edge of the frame to compensate for defects caused by lenses. You can use it more creatively by dragging the Amount slider to -86 and Midpoint to +18. This gently darkens the edges of the portrait and draws the eye to the main subject. Try creating different versions using the same techniques.

12. Spoiled for choice
All the changes you've made to your portrait can be undone at any time, even after you've clicked Done to close the file. The original RAW file will remain untouched. The changes you've made are stored alongside the RAW image in a separate file so that Photoshop knows which image adjustment settings to use next time you open the portrait.