Digital BW, The Print

> From: jvajdos@... [mailto:jvajdos@...]
>
> Do you guys think the grayscale is sufficient or do you have other
> ways you like to convert to black and white in Photoshop or other
> software?  I've downloaded a few free Photoshop plug-ins to convert
> color photos to black and white.  Do you think that these are all
> basically the same, or does anyone have a certain one to recommend?

You can almost always do better than simply converting to grayscale or
zeroing the saturation. The easiest PS tool to use is the Channel Mixer. For
instance, you can darken blue skies dramatically by using something like
150% red, 0% green, and -50% blue. Another approach is to use a grayscale
proof setup, then yank the underlying colors around with things like
Hue/Saturation while viewing the gray, and then do a final conversion to
grayscale when done. Other people do essentially the same thing with a
Hue/Sat adjustment layer with the saturation turned down, but the former has
the advantage that you can toggle between gray and color with Ctrl+Y.

> Also, I am going to be in the market for a monitor and have no idea
> what I should look for.  I do some color work, but mostly black and
> white.  What features should I be sure to have with one?

Get a calibrator. Also, be aware that most LCDs confuse calibrators, because
of the variations in their output versus viewing angle. Unless you can get a
high-end LCD, you're safer buying a decent CRT. You can also get higher
resolution out of a CRT (with suitable video card), like 2048x1536.

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