Converting color digital image to black & white

George DeWolfe in his new book (Digital Photography: Fine Print
Workshop) suggests that you view the scene you wish to convert to black
& white through a Wratten 90 filter. If the tones rendered there are
satisfactory, then a simple desaturate operation in Photoshop will
yield a good black & white image. Accepting that, what does one do if
the viewing through the 90 filter does NOT yield a satisfactory black
and white rendering? A simple desaturate will not yield an acceptable
image. (The use of the 90 filter to visulize the B&W rendering of the
scene was well known among silver-based photographers.)

There are a number of alternative available third-party programs to
convert the image to black & white, eg., BW workflow Pro, nik Color
Efex Pro, Dr. Brown's Photostyler, Power Retouche B&W Studio plugin.
Photokit, Mystical Tint & tone. I'm sure there are still others. You
can also simply work on the individual RGB channels and then combine
them in appropriate proportions with the Channel mixer. While this
probably gives you greatest control, it can be a tedious and
time-consuming process until much experience is accumulated.

My question: What recommendations can you make for the B&W conversion
operation? Thanks.

wrote:
George DeWolfe in his new book (Digital Photography: Fine Print
Workshop) suggests that you view the scene you wish to convert to black
& white through a Wratten 90 filter. If the tones rendered there are
satisfactory, then a simple desaturate operation in Photoshop will
yield a good black & white image. Accepting that, what does one do if
the viewing through the 90 filter does NOT yield a satisfactory black
and white rendering? A simple desaturate will not yield an acceptable
image. (The use of the 90 filter to visulize the B&W rendering of the
scene was well known among silver-based photographers.)

There are a number of alternative available third-party programs to
convert the image to black & white, eg., BW workflow Pro, nik Color
Efex Pro, Dr. Brown's Photostyler, Power Retouche B&W Studio plugin.
Photokit, Mystical Tint & tone. I'm sure there are still others. You
can also simply work on the individual RGB channels and then combine
them in appropriate proportions with the Channel mixer. While this
probably gives you greatest control, it can be a tedious and
time-consuming process until much experience is accumulated.

My question: What recommendations can you make for the B&W conversion
operation? Thanks.

Lightroom. Unfortunately, it's the third time it's come up today, and I
don't want to shill for any single product, but it does have the best
B+W converter I have seen. Moreover, all the adjustments are
non-destructive, and can be set in place on the RAW image, so you can
get 16 bit stuff into PS in balanced grayscale.

--
John McWilliams