Digital BW, The Print

>
>
>My technical question that has gone unanswered is why the Histogram
>has spikes and gaps in it after I convert it to grayscale, yes I can
>make corrections with gausian noise, but seems  that softens my
>image. Does anybody now a better way? I have tried various workflows
>on the same image and always end up with the same "Chopped and
>shuffled" Histogram.
>
>
>Nodbo
>

The short answer is, those spikes and gaps are the "lost" image 
information resulting from the change from colour to B&W. Wither or 
not important info is lost depends on the original image and the end 
result you want. Probably best to buy one of the good Photoshop books 
for a full explanation. Books such as Martin Evening " Adobe 
Photoshop for Photographers and " Real World Photoshop" by David 
Blatner and Bruce Fraser.

For sharpening I use NikSharpenerPro. There is also  free sharpening 
Photoshop Plugins developed by users, suggest you try that first. I 
dont have a URL for it but I think Jerry O has tried it with good 
results.

Jerry.