Skip to content
ArcBrush ArcBrush Docs

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.

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: 1 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

Photoshop-style preset. 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 FitChoice
Default: None (native size)
Mask connected

How the mask is sized when it doesn't match the image. None: center at native size, no scaling. Stretch: scale to exactly match image dimensions. Fit: scale to fit inside image, preserving aspect ratio. Fill: scale to fill image, cropping overflow

  • None (native size)Center the mask at its native size — 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”