Digital Matt
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Upload & Sell: Off
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Hi Mark,
I took a shot at converting your gorgeous photo 
I think if you want a good B&W conversion, you have to start with the best color image you can, and I saw room for improvement in your color image. Things that struck me right off the bat were that colors weren't super saturated, there is a blueish cast to it, it's a tad dark, and not sharp. I first corrected those things before doing any b&w conversion. I bumped the saturation by 30, then I used a color balance adjustment layer and "warmed" the image with some subtle reds and oranges.
I used a channel mixer adjustment layer to go to black and white, with monochrome checked and 80% red, 20% green, and 0% blue. It still seemed a bit dark, so I used a curves adjustment and brightened it a bit. I sharpend it a tad at the end, something like 20%, 5, 0, and 150%, 0.2, 0, and that's it. I've added some noise with my corrections, but I suspect working with a tiff converted from raw you could avoid a lot, especially if you bumbed the saturation in the raw, and corrected the color cast and exposure there first.
Feel free to critique what I've done as well.
http://www.anti-rejection.com/meadowcolor-1.jpg
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. As for the sharpness, the original is much sharper.. I think when I reduced it down and re-saved, it came out a little less sharp.
