Digital BW, The Print

> From: Cara Curreri [mailto:ctb1206@...]
>
> Hello,
> I am relatively new to digital photography and have a dumb question.
> I would like to take a digital (color) image and print it as a b & w.
>  How is this accomplished?  I have a Fuji FinePix 3800, 3.2 mg pixels
> camera.
>
> Is this accomplished thru software?  If so, what product?  I don't
> have adobe photoshop.  Is there something relatively cheap (s/w
> package) that could be downloaded or shareware that accomplishes this
> easily?
>
> P.S. I have a HP 7350 Photojet printer that I am very happy with to
> print these out on.

Any software will be able to do a basic conversion to B&W. However, for best
results, you want to be able to play with the colors, sometimes drastically,
before conversion. For instance, it's helpful to be able to darken or
lighten a blue sky in a landscape photo independent of the foreground.
Sometimes, this can be done by manipulating the blue channel, but what's
even more powerful in Photoshop is the ability to select an even narrower
color range and play with that. Of course, it's hard to visualize the B&W
result when you're still looking at the color image, and you've yanked the
colors around into some unnatural state. Photoshop lets you play with the
colors while viewing the image as B&W by using a B&W proof setup, which
works really well.

So the point, I guess, is that you get what you pay for. You'll find that
you can do a reasonable job in just about any inexpensive editor, but
ultimately you can get even better result by investing in Photoshop. Of
course, one could say the same about the camera and the printer, too. ;-)

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...