Contrary to what some believe, I’ve found that publishing LE prints actually INCREASES the price I’m able to get for my originals, and by a large margin. Why?

I suspect it’s because of psychology; there’s a tendency to want to ladder climb in certain people. If there’s a better/more panachey/more expensive version they aspire to it. Not uncoincidentally, when I raised the prices on my originals it boosted the interest in my prints, creating a sort of feedback loop.

Always a pleasure to be of service. Good to hear the trusty 2B Lightsaber is in action again!

Always nice to have a Yoda in one’s corner to tune one in!

I know many artists who use greyscale in Photoshop and the result can be very helpful in understanding the relative values within an image. But, personally, I think that’s as far as that strategy should be taken. Once understood, that knowledge should be used to aid interpretation, but the temptation is to use those relative values as requirements rather than suggestions.

My strategy is to first establish the darkest value in the drawing. You now have the darkest and lightest (the white of the paper) values exposed and all intermediate values should automatically fall into place. That puts you in control and not the greyscale image.

I’ve edited the article to include your question, and so I can post suitable illustrations.

I ask, because on the forum I hang out on, using Photoshop to grayscale a colour picture in order to better see values when using coloured pencil is considered the thing to do. Does your caution only apply to photos for graphite/monochrome work, or coloured work as well? Love your column and advice, now that I’ve found you!
cheers
Donna

And the tidbit about using a light 2B was helpful; I’d been using a 9H to keep it unobtrusive, and it was…until the inevitable erasing…

Its very common for different colours to end up showing as the same tone in b&w, and this can send you down a wrong path.

Sure, I still use b&w photos, but never exclusively…