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The quickest and dirtiest colour-to-monochrome technique is to change the image mode to greyscale in a photo-editing program. Slightly better is to use the colour-to-black-and-white converter built into every photo-editing program.
A more complex (and our preferred) method is to change the picture mode to Labcolour, select the Lightness channel, change its mode to greyscale, duplicate the layer using Multiply blending mode and then vary the opacity of the top layer. Are you still with us?
Now we have Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro, a plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture that gives us control over the conversion process that is akin to working in the darkroom, without the toxic mess.
SEP is expensive and whether or not it is worth the money depends on how devoted you are to black and white. There are cheaper alternatives, such as Fred Miranda’s BW Workflow Pro (fredmiranda.com), which does the job well but without the versatility and levels of control of SEP. It is an outstanding piece of software.
Nik Silver Efex Pro is available at an academic discount price of $115.
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