Digital BW, The Print

Hi Kim,

Like Eddie, I would recommend beginning with Channel Mixer in PS. Everything
that any "conversion" software and/or action provides can be accomplished
manually in PS, albeit with a bit of work and some understanding of what's
going on. That said, conversion plug-ins like Imaging Factory's Convert to
B&W Pro provide a nice interface giving you predefined color response for
various film types, and the ability to modify contrast based on standard
multigrade filtration. I guess it really comes down to deciding how much
effort you're willing to invest in tweaking a conversion and the demands on
your time. If you do now or anticipate doing quite a bit of B&W work from
color image files, then one of the automated conversion techniques would
certainly provide certain efficiencies.

Anyway, just my 2 cents, 2! ;>)

Alan Huntley

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edward Wiseman" <pahts@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Question on Plugins converting to b/w


> Kim..
> May I suggest that you give PHOTOSHOP'S " Channel-Mixer a try before you
shell out any money..especially if you havn't made any prints..IMHO, all of
these plug-ins that do color to B&W conversion using the features that are
already native to PS..Some however make it more "user-friendly" but that's
it..I think you will have as much control using adjustment layers/channel
mixer..
> Good luck..Try to keep your money in your pocket in the meantime..
> Just my 2 cents..
>
> Eddie Wiseman
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Kim Fullbrook
>   To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 3:53 PM
>   Subject: [Digital BW] Question on Plugins converting to b/w
>
>
>   There are lots of different ways of converting colour digital images to
>   black & white. Some use Photoshop's own functions like simple conversion
to
>   grayscale, and there are also some third party plug-ins available.  I've
>   played with a few plugins prior to spending any money but not done any
>   printing yet and am interested in members' views.
>
>   These are the ones I've tried - there may be others.
>   "Convert to B&W Pro" for $99.95 from imagingfactory.com
>   "Black and White" from silveroxide.com. This has various options, and I
>   tried out the Tri-X "Enhanced" for $55.Interestingly, they say their
Tri-X
>   demo doesn't work on XP but it worked fine for me.
>   Powerretouche.com - black and white studio $75 or 50 UKP
>
>   The results from all were hard to distinguish apart but I preferred them
to
>   any of the built-in Photoshop methods. For me the key points were:
>
>   Imagingfactory - lots of film options, most expensive, I found it easy
to
>   get a balanced results
>   Silveroxide - only one film option per filter, cheaper, use of
"brightness"
>   and "gamma" was fiddly in the small preview window.
>   Powerretouche - lots of options, "busy" user interface but powerful,
slowest
>   to run
>
>   There may well be other plug-ins out there doing a similar job.  I'm
>   interested to hear others views before I buy one, especially from those
who
>   have made prints.
>
>   Kim Fullbrook
>
>
>   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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