B&W Nights is a free black and white Lightroom preset designed for night photography. Its high-contrast tones have true blacks and brilliant whites. It works best on nighttime urban scenes with numerous light sources, like street lamps or headlights. Because of these intensified tones, this monochrome preset — even in the absence of color — will give you a sense of dynamic vibrance.
You can use B&W Nights as an artistic and cinematic preset for your photos. This bold style goes well with the stark statements of street and urban photography. Try it also on urbanscapes if you want to accentuate various light intensities in a vast cityscape.
You can use this high-contrast film aesthetic as an Instagram filter, even as a motif for your entire feed. It will make it look compelling and relevant; this preset is, after all, a stunning fusion of vintage and modern styles.
Brightens and Intensifies Night Scenes
Bold Look. At a glance, you can already tell that B&W Nights heightens exposure, contrast, and texture. The entire image looks vivid as a result. It has broad tones, from inky blacks to bright whites. The preset makes it a point to balance these three elements well so that it can showcase as much of the tones as possible.
With these attractive tones are, of course, the textures that add to the crisp modern style. B&W Nights significantly sharpens them to make details just as distinct. You can see the result in the After photo above. Examine the building facade, the signages, and even the gritty asphalt.
Produces Inky Blacks
True Black. B&W Nights take advantage of the dark by using its tones to create deep, true, blacks. These make anything lighter than it jump into the foreground. It creates this look by significantly lowering both blacks and shadows but leaving some room for grays. As you can see in the example above, the dark sky is now purely black, yet there are enough grays to show depth and detail.
To complete the dark look, the preset also adds vignetting. This helps draw attention to the subject or the scene being portrayed. It blends seamlessly into the image.
Amplifies Whites and Highlights
Brilliant Light. At the opposite end of the tonal spectrum are, of course, the highlights, and they are as intense as the blacks. The preset draws them out as much as possible, all the while retaining enough detail. As you can see in the After photo above, B&W Nights produce crisp and brilliant whites. The woman's umbrella appears even brighter against the dark, blackened, sky.
Adjusts Luminance in the Mix Channel
Deep and Rich. The preset finely adjusts the mix channels to optimize the monochrome look once the photo is converted to black and white. It makes red and magenta colors more luminous, which is often seen on skin tones. It then darkens the rest of the colors in varying levels, especially for aqua. If you are applying this preset on a landscape photo, you can notice it the most on any body of water or some hues in the sky.
B&W Nights preset is for Lightroom Mobile, Desktop and...
Like all our presets, you can absolutely use B&W Nights as is, right out of the box. With any preset, you might need to make adjustments to accommodate your specific camera, settings, lighting and subject matter.
- Entirely Adjustable
- Compatible with Lightroom 4, 5, 6 and CC
- Performs with both PC, Mac, and Mobile
- Applicable to both RAW and JPG images
- 100% Free
This Free Lightroom Preset was last updated on March 15, 2020
