photoshop 7.0

A stupid question but how do you make your pictures into black and white? on photoshop 7.0

Thanks for helping
jas

There are a dozen ways. The easiest in CS (probably 7 as well) is to choose Image -> adjustments -> desaturate. My preferred way is to create a channel mixer adjustment layer and check the black and white box down the bottom.

Another easy way is to hit control/shift/U

The easy way is not always the best. If you do it the easy way (Image > Desaturate) it throws away all the valuable color pixels from the image. You might be thinking that you don't need them because you want it B&W.

But the true is that even in a B&W shot you'll have more control if you have the color pixels there.
The best way to convert to black & white is with the chanel mixer as mentioned by Tim, furthermore it gives you full control over the tones, is like playing with B&W filters in conventional photography. If you play with the red, green and blue sliders will change the tones.

For example if you slide the red to 100% all the reds in the image will show as a lighter grey and the blues will show as dark greys. This give you excelent control.

Another choice is to convert the image to Lab Color mode, and then delete the A and B channels (the two channels that contain the color information). But you better using the channel mixer.

Thanks for the help as always!!