Quote Originally Posted by TheBlueFish
Agreed. It's hard to get the right brightness. My LCD tends to make things look a tad bright. Have to check it off against a CRT later.

I guess i went a little too far in the conversion. I was looking for a contrasty sky. The way to get good control over the B&W conversion is to use the channel mixer in PS. You can then specify the contribution of the various color channels to produce the final B&W. In this way... it's allows you to simulate the application of color filters in B&W photography.

What about contrast? Is it a little too far? Admittedly some detail is lost of the light areas and dark areas tend to be a little too dark.

Yes, thats the way to do the B&W convert, channels mixer. Try applying a multiply layer to the original image at about 35 % opacity. This enhances and for some reason, brings out the clouds much like a polarizing filter but without the blue color added. Then convert and mix. They look fine now all needs is a levels adjustment to bring out the shadows a bit.