I bet you thought I forgot about my promise to post all the videos from Deke’s Photoshop Channels and Masks One-on-One, but I was really just distracted by all the dekepods, martini hours, and contest fabulousness around here.

Anyhoo, returning today with an episode from Lesson 9 in which Deke explains how Photoshop gives you a total of five ways to mix a grayscale image from an RGB (or otherwise colored) photograph. Three are automated but limited. The other two take a little more work, but they’re customizable and nondestructive. The automated methods involve choosing the grayscale command when viewing one or more channels; the nondestructive, and thus preferable, methods involve Channel Mixer and Black & White adjustment layers. If this whets your appetite, be sure to check out the book for more Channel Mixing goodness.