How to · 7 min
Choose M2, M3, or M4 and tune Color Response
Translate captured color into monochrome tone with the Development controls.
Signal Path sets the foundation for your monochrome photograph. M2 is Flat Tone, M3 behaves like a red filter, and M4 gives a gentler orange-filter separation. Color Response then lets you tune eight overlapping source-color bands without turning the result back into color.
The method
Step by step.
- Open Development above Crop. Start with M2 Flat Tone when you want a neutral monochrome foundation.
- Compare M3 when red subjects should reproduce lighter and blue subjects darker. Compare M4 for a gentler lift to skin, earth, rust, and other warm colors.
- Use Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, and Magenta to tune the captured colors behind the monochrome image. Move a band right to make those source colors lighter or left to make them darker.
- Judge relationships rather than individual sliders: bodywork against road, skin against background, foliage against sky. Neighboring bands overlap, so small moves usually read more naturally than opposing extremes.
- Continue into Light, Tone Curve, local masks, and Finish. Signal Path and Color Response travel with recipes, snapshots, presets, Copy/Paste Edits, Undo/Redo, Library previews, and native export.
Keep this close
Control reference.
- M2
- Flat Tone: a neutral linear-light conversion and the default for photographs without saved edits.
- M3
- Normalized red-filter response that lifts reds and deepens blues.
- M4
- Normalized orange-filter response with gentler warm-color separation.
- Color Response
- Eight smoothly overlapping bands that remap source color into luminance.
At your own pace
Try it.
On a car photograph, compare M2 with M4, then lower Blue slightly and raise Orange slightly. Watch the paint, chrome, road, and sky rather than chasing a dramatic slider setting.
Watch for
An already-monochrome JPEG has no hidden color separation to recover. The controls remain visible, but they cannot invent source color that is not present.
Monochrome Lab Pro workflow guide. Interface details may evolve. Example settings are creative starting points, not automatic corrections.