b/w slides from digital

I wrote a rant, sort of, a while back after trying to get b/w slides from slides.com. As an update ... I sent the same files to imagers.com and rec'd those slides yesterday. The slides.com slides were yellow/brown. The imagers.com slides are blue. Neither of them look like black and white on the lightbox or in a projector. I called imagers.com and spoke with someone re: file setup to see if I was doing something wrong. He said no, there is just no way to get true black and white in a slide from a digital file. He suggested I could send in a file with varying amounts of magenta/yellow/cyan to see if it would make a better slide but that's just too hit and miss for what I am trying to do.

So, if you are in the market for black and white slides from digital files ... I don't know if it really is possible or not.

Jenny:

Are you sending them a color file and asking for a B+W slide or are you sending a filed that you have converted to B+W yourself?

Rocky, they asked that I send them in RGB, that the equipment can't read grayscale. The guy I talked to this morning (Bernardo) was very nice and explained that the film used in the machine is color. He said there is just no way (without trial and error) to get a true black and white slide, at least on their equipment.

I told him I needed the slides for juried art compeitions and he said that jurors know that you can't get a true b/w in a slide from digital and that they allow for that. I don't know if that is true or not.

I may revert back to my old methods of printing the b/w image, then shooting a photo of that using Astia. At least it's a much cheaper alternative (though it also looks much cheaper).

Thanks for the clarification Jenny. I have just started playing around with B+W digital so I was curious.

Jenny, i beleive if you hit image channel mixer then click on monochrome it remains a rgb file.

robert................

Robert, that's the way I convert from color to b/w. Channel mixer then monochrome which does still leave it in RGB. Unfortunately, the digital files appear to be outputted to color transparency film which then adds a color cast.

Jenny-

I just looked at a bunch of slides I had previously made from digital files and realized that I had some b&w conversions in amongst them. The RGB b&w images that I sent to Slides.com came back absolutely neutral. I used Adobe RGB as always. Not sure what the problem was with your pics but I did want you to know that it was definately possible.

Thanks Dan. I just called imagers.com again yesterday to see if they could try these again. They told me, again, that a truly neutral b/w slide wasn't possible. Yet I just had a friend get slides from them that were! I am glad you had sucess ... now if I could just get mine neutral!

Jenny Ellerbe wrote:Thanks Dan. I just called imagers.com again yesterday to see if they could try these again. They told me, again, that a truly neutral b/w slide wasn't possible. Yet I just had a friend get slides from them that were! I am glad you had sucess ... now if I could just get mine neutral!

It really sounds like it must be something in your color management system, or that of Imagers.com. Check your images in Photoshop using the eyedropper and Info pallete and make sure all your numbers are the same for RGB. If one number is higher or lower than the other then you have a color shift present as with a RGB b&w all the values will be the same.

I'd reconvert your images and make sure that you unsaturate them as your last step and send them to Slides.com. I've been happy with their service and next day turnaround.

Thanks Dan. I checked the images as you suggested and the RGB numbers are all the same ... so I have at least eliminated that as a problem.