Black and white photo converter

Two ways to remove color from a photo

Turning a photo black and white means replacing every pixel's color with a shade of gray, but there's more than one way to decide how bright that gray should be. A simple average of the red, green and blue values is the most direct method, but it doesn't match how the eye perceives brightness: pure green looks much brighter to us than pure blue at the same numeric value. A perceptual conversion weights each color channel by how sensitive human vision actually is to it, which is why it's the recommended default and generally produces a more natural-looking result.

Adjustable strength

Instead of an all-or-nothing switch, the strength slider blends between the original color photo and the fully converted grayscale one, so you can dial in anything from a subtle desaturated look to a classic, complete black and white.

Batch conversion

Drop as many photos as you like and every one gets the same method and strength applied, with individual downloads or a single ZIP for the whole batch.

Why offer both methods at all

A photo with a lot of green foliage or blue sky can look noticeably different depending on the method: the perceptual conversion tends to keep those areas looking balanced against skin tones and other colors, while the simple average can make greens read darker or blues read lighter than expected. Having both on hand means you can pick whichever one suits a particular photo, rather than being stuck with one fixed formula.

Privacy

Every photo is converted locally on your device, pixel by pixel, in your browser. Nothing is ever uploaded.