There are lots of possible techniques to make black and white pictures.
If you own a D200 or D80, you can just select the in camera BW mode, this will give you BW pictures that are a bit flat but usable. The major drawback is that if you shoot Jpeg, you won't get the color information. If you shoot RAW+Jpeg, you get both and keep the flexibility if you want to play afterwards.
The next possibility is to use simple options in packages such a Nikon Picture Project (BW conversion) or remove color information in Photoshop or equivalent package. The result is a BW picture, but the overall impression can be very disappointing.
In Nikon Picture Project it is just a simple "effect" option and you can choose either BW or Sepia. The only thing you can do to play a little bit to influence the result is to work with brightness and the color booster (all options inside Picture Project). This might give you decent results but this is not my recommend workflow. Another possibility is to use Nikon Capture, select the option Photo Effects (same as in Picture Project) but here you have a number of sub-options allowing to do more or less the same as you could do with adjustment layers in Photoshop. Brightness and curves to adjust contrast can of course also be used. Definitely highly recommend if you are not a Photoshop freak.
A very popular technique is to use adjustment layers in Photoshop. There are lots of good tutorials about the different methods on the internet. Basically you create two adjustment layers above your picture, one of them working on color, put the slider on zero and then work with the other adjustment layer, playing with saturation, hue,... Results can be amazing because you'll influence contrast and the way colors are being translated. Using filters, playing with contrast will further help you to find the result you'll like. Experimenting is the key. The rest is mainly a matter of taste.
An interesting link with a detailed
explanation on one
conversion method:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-black-white.htm
Another site giving an overview of
possible techniques:
http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=43
Excellent short explanation of the
adjustment layers technique:
Popphoto
- I hate Hue article
A few examples:
