Digital BW, The Print

Cannot disagree with Jim.

There are numerous ways of converting an RGB (color) file to B&W in
Photoshop. Everyone has their own preferred way.

A good place to start is
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/intro-digital-black-and-white.html

There are a huge number of articles and blogs about it on the web.

As for in camera conversion, if you shoot JPGs you're stuck with the
settings you chose. I shoot Canon but I assume Nikon is similar. What
I now do is shoot RAW while leaving the camera setting to B/W. So I
can see what it might look like in B/W right there in the field. When
I convert the RAW file, it starts with a color image that I then more
precisely convert to my tastes using either Ligthroom or Photoshop.

I hope this can help you a bit,

Denis

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jim Goshorn
<jgoshorn@...> wrote:
>
> 
> On Oct 19, 2007, at 10:54 PM, Linda McCarthy wrote:
> 
> > I understand there are two methods of shooting B&W with my camera- a
> > Nikon D80; either by selecting the B&W option in the optimize image
> > menu before shooting, or by converting already-shot color photos using
> > the monochrome function in the retouch menu.  Have any of you
> > experienced one as being the better choice over the other?
> 
> Always choose to do the conversion yourself because doing it through  
> the camera uses the manufacturer's method and doing it yourself  
> offers you multiple ways of converting.
> 
> Jim
>