Grayscale Image

Grayscale Image Converter

Turn any color photo into a black-and-white (grayscale) image directly in your browser. Load a picture, choose a conversion method and download the result as PNG, JPG or WebP. No sign-up, no upload.

Why there is more than one way to make grayscale

A grayscale pixel has one brightness value instead of red, green and blue. The question is how to combine the three colors into that value — and different formulas give visibly different results:

• Luminance (Rec. 709): 0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B. Green contributes most because our eyes are most sensitive to it. This is the standard for HD video and sRGB screens.
• Luma (Rec. 601): 0.299 R + 0.587 G + 0.114 B, the older TV standard, still used by many image libraries.
• Average: (R + G + B) / 3. Simple, but a pure blue sky becomes as bright as a pure green field.
• Lightness: the mean of the brightest and darkest channel. It tends to flatten contrast.
• Single channel: red, green or blue alone — the digital version of using colored lens filters with black-and-white film.

Try a few methods on your image; the preview updates instantly.

Uses for grayscale images

Black-and-white photos feel timeless and help viewers focus on shapes, light and texture. Grayscale is also practical: it saves ink when printing, makes scanned documents easier to read, helps check the contrast of a design for accessibility, and is a common pre-processing step for computer vision and OCR.

The Strength slider blends between the original and the grayscale version for a desaturated, cinematic look. For a negative instead, use Invert Colors; for stylized looks try Instagram Filters.