Digital BW, The Print

Mary,

> I shoot 35mm film and want to print in B/W. 
> Typically, what would give the better B/W print in the end, 
> shooting in color or in B/W? ...

B&W film will usually give you a better image than color film 
converted to B&W.  Slide film has too little latitude to do a good 
job in many cases.  Color negative film has the latitude, but is not 
as sharp as a good silver grain B&W film such as Tmax 100.  Also, if 
you "filter" the image in Photoshop -- for example, using the red 
image as a substitute for a red filter -- the grain becomes much 
worse.  Color film depends on the multiple emulsions to smooth out 
the grain.  

It was this last factor that caused me to abandon my use of the best 
color negative film I could buy.  I'd thought it would be useful to 
do in-computer, multiple color filtering for B&W.  However, 
the "filtered" skies were unacceptably grainy.

Good luck with your B&W.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com