Lightroom B&W Mix: how to see where the original colors are?

Question

I have converted a color image into B&W using Lightroom. I need to adjust the amount of color used for this conversion.

Is it possible to visualize the areas of the image concerned by each slider of the "Black & White Mix" panel ?

Once the image is converted to B&W, that isn't as easy as it seems... I have been doing this conversion by error and trial. I also use a lot the history of Lightroom as a before/after viewer to see if I'm going in the right direction

EDIT : I also use the "color picker" tool. My problem isn't to select the right color, but to know in advance which pixels are going to be affected by a change in a single color slider.

With the original color image, Photoshop can be used to do it using "Select > Color Range" and you can precisely see where each color is.

But when it comes to the actual B&W conversion, even photoshop isn't more helpful.

Such a feature is probably not very helpful for a B&W conversion, seeing the effect of each slider is probably what work best. But I'm curious to know if that is feasible.

Answer 1

Unfortunately the answer is no. The colors interact. You can see the effect on your image as you adjust them. Many of the colors will effect whole image as the actual colors on the screen are made up of these colors. You can also go back to any of the settings in Lightroom and they will effect the B&W also. I quite often change the black and white levels and clarify after I have done the conversion as I can then see what they do on the image. Also after doing it like you are, you can then go change the color temperature which will effect the B&W and easier to do this after the conversion.