Black and White Conversion techniques

I almost always take all of my shots in color unless I know I will need a black and white for a particular purpose. I have a request from a family member who would like a series of 5 pictures converted to black and white from color. I have seen some discussions in the past but was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their pearls of wisdom. I have both Adobe PS2 and Elements 3.

Thanks for your help.

Read this. A more consise read is the Scott Kelby CS2 book, he devotes a chapter to B&W, and has about 5 methods, including calculations, channel mixer, can't remember the rest.

You could also try here. And for some great actions, TLR.

here's the quick and dirty Channel mixer method with SWF video

There are so many ways.
Check the channel pallets and look at each channel individually. Copy them and use them if you like.
Or use the channel mixer to blend these channels together to create your own formula.
Desaturate the image with a hue/saturation layer
Use some plugins (B&W by Imaging Factory) to do it for you.
Switch to LAB mode and use the lightness/A/B channel.
Use a gradient map from black to white (or white to black)

The cool thing is that you can blend all of these methods together using layer masks. Convert each section of the image (sky/water/grass/build​ing) using the best method for that area then mask it in/out. Do the rest for the other areas then throw a desaturation layer on top to make sure all the colour is removed.

How would you do that? Thank you in advance. Sorry for the noob question

If you click the split circle at the bottom of your layers palette (CS2) there is an option to add a gradient map adjustment layer.
There are several options in there... one of which is black to white (probably default).
You can also click the invert option to have it go white to black.

There are other cool patterns in there... and you can get some pretty cool effects with colour images. You can also make your own patters/gradients.

The most popular conversion method is the channel mixer.
A tip for using this, look at each individual colour channel first and focus on the main components of your image.

For example, think about the sky. Look at the sky as you switch between the red/blue/green channels. Rank them in your mind... which one is better. IE... green looks really good... there's some good stuff in red... but blue looks horrible. (theoretical example)
In this case, start a channel mixer with 70 green and 30 red (blue 0). That gives you a starting point.

Then hide that layer, add another, and look at the other sections of your image. Repeat the process.

From there, you can blend your adjustments together using masks to get the best for all areas in your image.

Also, don't buy into "rules" for conversions. Most people will say stuff like "for portraits, I always use 80red, 15green, 5blue" or whatever. Ignore that, find the best settings for each image.
First rule that you can ignore... they don't HAVE to add to 100. you can go above and beyond.
Second, although "rules" might be a good starting point, you won't get the best from your image unless you analyze each one. Dive in and guess your best starting point by inspecting the colour channels.
Also, don't be afraid to try negative amounts on some channels. I've used this for several landscape shots.

thanks

I use Power REtouche BW Studio. I love it. Time is money and I prefer to not reinvent the wheel every time I want to convert something. But thats just me.

For Elements 3 look at www.photoshopelementsu​res.com forum for info on B&W