In the current issue, Mike Langford explores the magical world of black and white with channels and the black and white adjustment tool – with a little help of the Motukaraka Church in New Zealand. One glance at his powerful photograph has you immediately wanting to understand how he created it and Mike won’t disappoint you.

Writes Mike, “When I'm preparing my files for printing, I use Capture One and process the files out as 16-bit TIFF files, full size. This gives me as much information as possible. I also use Capture One to convert my images to black and white, using the black and white adjustment menu which is based on six colour channels. Using the channels is the key to getting your black and white images to sing.

“The best way to demonstrate this is to show you a series of images with different settings. Note how using the colour channels you can fine tune the exposure and contrast of the different tones in the image. I find this gives me much greater control and creates greater tonal depth than just using a straight grey scale conversion.”

Mike includes a range of examples and you can see them all in Better Photography magazine. Subscribe now!