1. Converting to monochrome

Here's a good technique for controling the tonal balance when converting colour images to black and white. You've probably noticed that if you simply convert a colour image to greyscale it looks very flat. In traditional black and white photography you'd use colour filters over the camera lens to emphsise different tones in the final image. You can achieve the same effect in Photoshop using two hue/saturation/brightness adjustment layers. Here's how:

Step 2.

Rename this layer 'Filter', and set the mode to Colour (or Color for you yanks). Click OK, and then click OK again on the adjustment panel that appears.

Step 3.

Create a second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer as in step 1, and label this one 'Output'. Leave the mode as Normal.

Step 4.

In the adjustment panel for the output layer, slide the saturation control all the way to the left, so the image becomes monochrome. Click OK to close this panel.

Step 5.

In the Layers palette, double click on the Filter layer to open its adjustment panel. If you move the hue slider left and right you'll see that different tones become lighter or darker. You can use this to fine-tune your monochrome images to get the best tonal balance, or to distinguish different colours. When you're happy with it, flatten the layers and save.