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Black and White

Black and White
Color

Converts color images to grayscale with per-hue channel sliders and film-style presets, mapping each color range to a custom gray intensity.

The Black and White node applied to a source image: original (left) and result (right).
Side-by-side comparison: the original image on the left and the same image after the Black and White node on the right.

Black and White turns a color image into grayscale, but instead of a single formula it gives you independent control over six hue ranges: Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues, and Magentas. Pushing Reds to +200% makes red skin tones bright; pulling Blues to -100% makes a blue sky nearly black. This is the same approach Photoshop uses, via HSV hexagon hue-sextant decomposition rather than a simple RGB weighted sum.

Thirteen built-in presets cover classic black-and-white photography looks, including Red Filter (bright skin, darker skies), Blue Filter (the opposite), Infrared (bright foliage), and High Contrast variants. Editing any slider automatically switches the preset to Custom. The Auto button analyzes the connected image and computes slider values that equalize the grayscale output across all six hue sextants.

Parameters

Section titled “Parameters”

Pins

ImageImage
InputRequired
MaskMask
InputOptional
ImageImage
Output

Preset

PresetChoice
Default: Default Range: Custom / Default / Blue Filter / Darker / Green Filter / High Contrast Blue Filter / High Contrast Red Filter / Infrared / Lighter / Maximum Black / Maximum White / Neutral Density / Red Filter / Yellow Filter

Preset channel-mixer weights, named after classic photographic filters.

Selecting a preset updates the channel sliders. Any manual edit switches back to Custom.

Channel Mixer

RedsNumber
Default: 40 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for red hues

YellowsNumber
Default: 60 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for yellow hues

GreensNumber
Default: 40 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for green hues

CyansNumber
Default: 60 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for cyan hues

BluesNumber
Default: 20 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for blue hues

MagentasNumber
Default: 80 Range: -200–300

Gray weight for magenta hues

Mask

Mask FromChoice
Default: Luminance
Color image connected to the mask input

How the connected color image is read as a mask

  • LuminanceRead the image's brightness as the mask. The default.
  • AlphaRead the image's transparency as the mask.
  • RedUse the red channel as the mask.
  • GreenUse the green channel as the mask.
  • BlueUse the blue channel as the mask.
Mask FitChoice
Default: None (native size)
Mask connected

How the mask is sized when it doesn't match the image

  • None (native size)Center the mask at its native size, with no resizing. Unmasked regions are unaffected.
  • StretchStretch the mask to exactly match the image dimensions. May distort the mask shape.
  • Fit (letterbox)Scale the mask to fit inside the image, preserving aspect ratio. Letterboxes where needed.
  • Fill (crop)Scale the mask to fill the image, preserving aspect ratio. Crops edges if aspect ratios differ.

Usage Tips

Section titled “Usage Tips”
  • Start from a preset close to the look you want, then fine-tune individual channels.
  • Red Filter is the classic portrait look: bright skin, dramatic darker skies.
  • Pull Blues and Cyans down hard when converting landscape photos with sky to create punchy, dramatic monochrome.
  • Connect a mask to localize the conversion so only part of the image becomes grayscale.
  • Click Auto on a new image to get a balanced starting point before tweaking.
Section titled “Related Nodes”