Behind The Lens is the name of the blog. The Words Behind the Lens are written over a photo of red canyon walls of Lake Powell Utah with camera with strap tilted on its side.

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Transforming a Blue Color Cast Image into a Striking Black & White

Tanya Owens
Feb 15
2 min read

Updated: Mar 5

Hi everybody, let’s go Behind the Lens and take a look at an image I transformed in my digital darkroom.

Split image of a marina: left with blue filter, right in black and white. Boats, palm trees, and clouds visible. Text: "From Blue Cast To Beautiful B&W."

In 2021, I was deep into refining my editing techniques and developing my artistic style. To practice, I sifted through older photos and stumbled upon a series I shot in 2006 during my first trip to West Palm Beach, Florida. Traveling light, I packed my Canon PowerShot A250—a budget-friendly prosumer digital camera with creative modes. It had a focal length of 5.8-23.2mm, an aperture range of f/2.6-5.5 (35mm equivalent: 35-140mm), and a digital zoom of 3.6x. Pretty sophisticated for its time, especially with manual aperture and shutter speed controls. I often used it to test settings before shooting with my film SLR. And though it was only 4 megapixels, it captured some surprisingly decent shots.

Blue Color Cast

To my surprise, when revisiting those photos, I noticed most had a strong blue color cast. Whoops—I had used the wrong white balance! Since the camera only saved JPEGs and not RAW files, I couldn’t rely on Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software to correct it.

Boats docked at a marina with palm trees and buildings in the background. Blue water and sky create a calm, tropical atmosphere.

Determined to salvage the shot, I imported it into Lightroom and worked on adjusting the white balance. But as I tweaked the colors, I realized something—the extensive corrections needed to fix the color cast made the image feel unnatural.

Boats docked at a marina under a partly cloudy sky, with palm trees and a building in the background. Calm water reflects the serene scene.

So, I decided to take a different approach: convert it to black and white. My aesthetic leans toward bold black and white—I love bright highlights, deep blacks, and rich contrast with smooth tonal gradation. I didn't want just a grayscale conversion; I wanted a true black and white image with depth and drama.

Boats docked at a marina under cloudy skies. Palm trees line the background. The scene is in black and white, conveying a calm mood.

After an initial pass in Lightroom, I sent the image to Nik Silver Efex Pro, using one of the high-contrast filters to push the look even further. While I was happy with most of the transformation, there was one problem—the clouds lost too much detail, appearing flat and washed out. When I tried restoring the cloud definition, it darkened the entire image and made it look over-processed.

Boats docked at a marina under cloudy skies. Palm trees line the background. The scene is in high contrast black and white, conveying a calm mood.

Final Image

To fix this, I took the image into Photoshop and carefully blended the clouds from my original Lightroom black and white version. It took several adjustments and fine-tuning, but the final result felt just right.

Boats docked at a marina under cloudy skies. Palm trees line the background. The scene is in high contrast black and white with some mid-tones, conveying a calm mood.

Looking at the image now, it reminds me of those vintage travel postcards—the kind that make you want to step into the scene and feel the ocean breeze. I can almost hear Harry Belafonte singing in the background! And that’s what good art should do—it should captivate you, transport you, and invite you into the moment.

Do you feel the whimsy?