Color to black and white · keep the tonal separation
One “strength” slider, and you are done. Runs locally, nothing is uploaded.
Black and white isn't the saturation slider pulled to 0 — that gives you a muddy grey picture. Real monochrome comes from letting different colours become different greys: a red filter darkens the sky and brightens skin, a green one brightens foliage. That's exactly what film photographers screwed onto the front of the lens.
The trouble with plain desaturation is that it averages the brightest and darkest channels without regard to how sensitive the eye is to each colour — pure blues and reds turn pale and light, and colours that look very different in brightness (pure blue and pure yellow, say) become the same grey. This page gives you one “Strength” slider — it converts to grey weighting red, green and blue by the eye's sensitivity, so the tones stay closer to the original, ready in one drag. But two colours of similar brightness still become the same grey here; to pull them apart and mix it yourself, press “Pro editor” for the full editor: the black and white adjustment layer gives red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta a weight each, so if you want a deeper sky or brighter skin you adjust that one channel, and you can also add a single-colour tint to the black and white. Everything is computed in your own browser; the photo is never uploaded.
Key features
One slider and it is done
A weighted formula that respects the primaries — more tonal separation than simply pulling saturation to zero.
Per-colour mixing (editor)
A weight for each of the six primaries (-200 to 300), plus an optional single-colour tint — in the full editor.
Runs locally
The photo is never uploaded. Close the tab and nothing is left.
Undo anytime
Went too far? Ctrl+Z steps back. Experiment freely until you download.
How to use
- 1 Add a photoDrag it into the box, or press Ctrl+V to paste.
- 2 Drag “Strength”The result on the right keeps up; stop when it looks right.
- 3 For per-colour mixing, go proA weight for each of the six primaries, so the right things go light and dark, lives in the black and white adjustment layer in the full editor.
- 4 DownloadSave it, or open the full editor to keep working.
FAQ
- How is this different from just desaturating?
- The editor's Desaturate computes grey as (brightest channel + darkest channel) ÷ 2, without regard to how sensitive the eye is to each colour: pure blues and reds come out too light, and colours that look very different in brightness (pure blue and pure yellow, say) end up as the same grey. This page weights red, green and blue by how sensitive the eye is to each, so the tones stay closer to the original; but it is still one fixed formula, and two colours that look equally bright still become the same grey here — to pull them apart, make a red shirt go dark and the sky go deeper, mix the colours yourself in the full editor.
- Do I need an account? Is it paid?
- Neither. Free, no sign-up, no usage cap, and no watermark.
- Is my photo uploaded?
- No. The conversion runs entirely in your own browser — we never receive the file.
- Can I get the color back afterwards?
- On this page, Ctrl+Z steps back. But a downloaded black-and-white image carries no color information — recoloring it means generating new colors with AI colorize, and those will not match the original exactly.
Try Color to black and white · keep the tonal separation now
No install · no sign-up · local stays local · free AI credits every day