Black & White photography

[Mcbain]

Hello all,

I recently purchased a 20D and i've been having a play with it (as you do!).
I've seen various Forums members B&W work (especially tinder) and thought it looks fantastic, so I had a go at converting some of my pictures into B&W.

my knowledge of post-processing isn't that great, but I had a go. The pictures seem to lack that certain "something??" that good B&W photos generally have..... I know this is partly down to them not being great photos (go easy on me, these were taken on first day of ownership!), but do any of you have some good post processing tips for converting to B&W???

cheers

Andy

http://www.andrewmills.f2s.com/IMG_0062.jpg

http://www.andrewmills.f2s.com/IMG_0061.jpg

Pic 3 (http://www.andrewmills.f2s.com/_MG_0056.jpg)
Pic 4 (http://www.andrewmills.f2s.com/_MG_0086.jpg)

[GreyJackal]

Gradient mapping is more "successful" in my experience than simply desaturating. Contrast can be fiddled with to give more punch as well.

[Mcbain]

Gradient mapping hmmm will look into that.
What i did was create a new channel mixer adjustment layer and tick "monochrome".. then played around with the contrast on the background layer...