Convert comics to black and white for e-ink
On a grayscale e-reader, colour pages you never converted properly read as muddy soup: the panel maps colours to grey however it likes, and detail drowns. This page converts the colour out deliberately. Drop the comic, and every page comes out as a tuned greyscale image: a luminance conversion rather than a naive desaturate, levels set for a reflective screen, and files that are smaller for having dropped the colour channels.
↑ Upload and configure in our Studio
Colour is switched off for you on this page. Pick the device you read on, or switch the output to CBZ if you want the greyscale archive itself rather than a book file, and convert.
- Files auto-delete after 24 hours
- No install, runs in any browser
- Free to use
- The genuine open-source KCC engine
How to convert a comic to grayscale
Drop your comic
CBZ, CBR, CB7, ZIP, RAR, 7Z, PDF or EPUB. The Kindle Paperwhite profile is preselected; change it to your Kobo, reMarkable or any other grey screen.
Colour is already off
The Keep colour option is off on this page, so the pipeline converts every page to greyscale. Leave it off for a grey device; turn it on only if you are converting for a Colorsoft or a colour Kobo.
Want the CBZ itself? Switch the output
Set the output tile to CBZ and you get the same greyscale pages back as an archive, with no device sizing, for a reader app or a server library.
Convert and download
Preview a page to see the greyscale result, then download. The file is smaller than the colour original and reads cleanly on an e-ink panel.
Smaller files, for free
Greyscale pages compress harder than colour ones, so a stripped volume is also a lighter volume, which matters on devices with modest storage and for the Send to Kindle size cap.
The pass is tuned for e-ink
KCC converts with a luminance weighting and gamma set for reflective screens, the same discipline the desktop app applies, so screentone and linework stay separate instead of flattening into one grey.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just let the e-reader display colour pages in grey?
Because the device maps colour to grey naively at display time: hues with similar brightness merge, panels go muddy and text in coloured boxes sinks. A deliberate conversion keeps contrast where the art needs it, and the file is smaller.
Can I get a greyscale CBZ out, not a Kindle file?
Yes. Switch the output to CBZ. The pages are still converted to greyscale and repacked as an archive. If you also want them sized for a specific screen, pick the device instead; the greyscale pass happens either way.
Is the result the same as the normal Kindle conversion?
The greyscale pass is the same one every conversion for a grey device runs. What this page adds is the preset: colour is off before you touch anything, so a comic that would otherwise have been kept in colour is not.
What about colour e-readers?
Keep the colour: the converter has profiles for the Kindle Colorsoft and the colour Kobos, and a page about keeping comic colour. Greyscale conversion is for the grey panels, which is still most e-readers.
Does it fix washed-out blacks too?
Greyscale on its own does not change contrast. For scans that read flat and grey, the fix faded blacks page presets the automatic contrast and level correction on top; both options can be on at once.
Conversion runs on Kindle Comic Converter (KCC), the open-source engine, whose pipeline performs the e-ink greyscale pass whenever colour is off. This page arms that setting before the file enters the queue; nothing else about the pipeline is different.
Free, nothing to install, colour already switched off