Digital BW, The Print

I agree.  I became quite adept with channel mixer, but the advantage 
of convert to B&W pro is it's more holistic approach.  It is 
certainly not some beginners substitute.  It builds on the power of 
PS.  

Quentin

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Kip Babington 
<cbabing3@s...> wrote:
> Maybe Channel Mixer becomes straightforward with a lot of 
experience, but I 
> find Convert B/W Pro to be immensely intuitive after 30+ years of 
black and 
> white film exposure, developing and darkroom printing.
> 
> For example, the color filter adjustment is a continuous slider 
that goes 
> from 0 (red) all the way round the color wheel to 360 (red again) 
with 
> another slider that lets you apply the selected color filter from 0 
to 
> 100%.  "Exposure" is held constant while you adjust filter color, 
so you 
> simply watch the gray tones come and go as you slide across the 
filter 
> bar.  Separate sliders adjust "negative exposure", "print exposure" 
and 
> paper contrast grade (continuous in 0.1 steps from -1.0 to 5.)  
Another 
> section of the control panel lets you select color response and 
gamma to 
> match the color sensitivity of five common black and white films 
(by name), 
> or "linear" response, or "Photoshop" response (not sure what that 
is,) or 
> set the color response manually at a half dozen points across the 
> spectrum.  The gamma slider is graduated from -100 to +100.  
Finally, you 
> can apply color, either sepia or blue, either as "tint" (which 
seems to 
> apply it across the whole print) or "tone" (which seems to be 
proportional 
> to the density in the print, with more effect on shadows than 
highlights) 
> and either of these are applied with a slider that goes from 0 (no 
tone) to 
> 100 (way too much.)
> 
> All changes are visible on a preview image, which can be zoomed and 
> panned.  The underlying file is not changed until you click OK.  
Filter 
> settings are remembered from one image to the next, so you don't 
have to 
> start over from neutral each time.
> 
> I'm sure all of this can be done directly in Photoshop with one or 
more of 
> the tools available, but to put it all in one panel with sliders 
that match 
> the way I have thought about black and white film and prints for 
decades, 
> made this particular filter well worth its cost TO ME.
> 
> Cheers,
> Kip
> 
> At 12/2/2002 06:47 AM +0000, Mark Hahn wrote, in part:
> >I can't help you since I use Photoshop, but during a recent general
> >surfing session I came across someone selling a "pro" B&W converter
> >plugin for PS and was baffled why anyone would need one with the
> >Channel mixer being so straight forward to use.  The big selling
> >point was that you could select Channel Mixer settings that
> >correspond to specific B&W filters and I could not help but wonder
> >why anyone would want to limit themselves to just the standard 
filter
> >sets... like going into the digital domain with its almost 
limitless
> >possibilities and then limiting your possibilities to those that
> >existed 50 years ago... hmmm.