Wow! Everyone has interesting techniques here, and they all seem valid. My question is what is the final output going to be to? That (along with the nature of the image itself) should be the determining factor in what is going to be best for a specific image. BTW... Cainbrogan has what I consider the most reliable method with making sure the levels are adjusted. Generally when I have a color image that is going to press in B&W, I do a level adjustment on the color image, then convert to grayscale, and tweak the levels again as the image values change.