B&W- Photoshop or photo lab?

[Kelha]

Is it better have a photo lab change your color photos to B&W? Do they have more depth than desaturating in photoshop? I have the same problem everyone else has with photoshop with the b&W coming out flat.

 

[KevinR]

I would say try a different B&W conversion. Say with Gradient Map or Channel Mixer. You might get what your looking for out of these.

 

[Tiberius]

If you're just desaturating the image, it'll always turn out flat. Try some of these techniques:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/photoshop/b-w.htm

(Rockwell haters need not reply - the article is top notch and the techniques work beautifully)

 

[rmh159]

I'm going to read that Rockwell article in a sec so if I'm repeating anything that's in there forgive me.

I get B&W photos to pop in Photoshop somewhat easily. Desaturate or convert to Grayscale and then adjust the levels. That usually does it fairly well for me or if I want to REALLY push the effect I'll cut and paste the sky into it's own layer, then do Levels on each seperate layer.

This is the final result

Pop!