I guess your Canon settings mean:Originally Posted by kernix
Sharpness = 3 = enhanced
Contrast = 0 = Neutral
Filter effect = R = Red
Toning effect = N = Neutral
The red filter is going to make blue skies go dark and increase contrast which makes sense for buildings. I would probably do something similar
I always shoot RAW and do the conversion to black-and-white afterwards in the NX2 editor using the channel mixer. I adjust two out of the three primary colours till it looks right. For people this usually means increasing the green quite a lot and increasing the red about half as much. This makes skin tones go lighter and perks up the image.