Digital BW, The Print

I have not seen any messages that discuss my favorite technique for
conversion to B&W. It uses a little-known PS feature called Split
channels.

Split Channels is a menu option on the flyout menu for the Channels
Palette. It takes your RGB image and creates a separate grayscale
image for each channel.

Almost everyone here will be familiar with using Mode | Grayscale or
Channel Mixer with the Monochrome box selected to create a B&W image.

This is even better than using Channel Mixer with Monochrome. Much
better, IMHO! After you create files for the separate channels, you
copy them all to the same document as separate layers. That way, you
get immediate feedback as you experiment with various layers options,
like opacity.

I worked on an image last night I brought the blue channel in at 5
percent opacity in Normal blend. The red channel was 80% opacity in
Normal blend. The green channel was 95% opacity, but I used Soft
Light blend for added contrast.

You can turn the visibility on and off for various layers as you try
to decided how much of each to incorporate. You can change the layer
opacity and blend mode. You can even control the set points for what
gets blended from each channel -- perhaps the shadows from one, the
midtones and highlights from another.

I'm working on a PDF tutorial right now.

It's now the only way I convert from color to B&W. Give it a try!
Pretty neat stuff!

Perhaps the Split Channel technique will come in handy for you in
the future.

Cheers,

Mitch