Trouble converting to B&W

If I can chime in here, I have been colour blind all my life, so B&W (film or digital) come a bit naturally to me.

The big problem is not the software, it's your "vision" to begin with, how you have to train your eyes and your brain.

Here's the sticky point - your brain does not "see" what your eyes see, it is a giant image processor (think photoshop on steriods) and your brain processes information from your  eyes and then give you and image - about once every 30th of a second.

The problem shooting B&W, again, any format - and I am serious about this, because guys who switch from painting watercolours to drawing all charchol pencil  B&W have this issue - is that two different colours can appear brighter but when converted to B&W or greyscale, they look the same.  for example,  you know how the colour red makes us all think "hot" and the colour blue makes us all think "cool", well you can have a light shade fo green beside a light shade of orange, but when converted to B&W they will look very similar.

What you have to do is train yourself to see images ahead pof time in your head in terms of tonality, inherent contrast, not the apparent brightness or dimness as influenced by colour.  Takes some doing for most people, but it can be done.    For example, take Ansel Adams old Zone system,a nd apply it to your original shot.  can you see ten different shades of grey in that shot, form pure white to pure black to begin with?   The zone system is not for everyone, but it is one way to start.

Artitiscally too, you have to think a bit different in B&W.  I think you have a good shot there, but crop it maybe 50%, do it portait mode, make the face and his expression the centre of the photograph.    the colour shot works because the colour of the walls gives you a "feeling" of his mood, but in B&W you loose that, so in B&W, you have to make his expression do all the work.

Here's how I see the image.  See how you make the grain of the wood in the chair work for you?



One last thought - I often have people compliment me on the vibrance of the colour in my photographs (Nikon DSLRs), but I seldom know what exactly they mean, since i have only 50% normal colour vision.  But I do apply the zone system to everything I shoot, or I try to, and if you do, you will find it helps the vibrance of all your colour shots too.

good luck, and don't give up