color slide -> B&W print

Being a climber who takes pictures (much) more than a photographer who
climbs, I've always taken slide film for slide shows, color prints,
etc. Yet when I was putting together a little website for a trip I
took to Mt McKinley earlier this summer
(http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~mamiller/docs/journal/2003/06/01-20-denali),
I played with some of the images in Photoshop, including making some of
them b&w. I found these far more dramatic and exciting. In the future
I'm far more likely to take b&w.

But for now, I want to make, if possible, some b&w prints of my slides.
I asked my local custom lab (Ziba, in Berkeley, CA) to do this, and
they did, but it has a purplish tint, which I found, afterward, is a
natural failing of the process - basically printing through a magenta
filter onto regular color paper. From talking to others, I think what
I want, in order to get blacks which are truly neutral, is for the
print to be on silver process paper? or fiber paper? But apparently a
different process is used for that? One which not many labs do,
perhaps, according to my research?

In the best of all possible worlds I would be able to make such a (true
b&w) print from a digital image, which I could play with in Photoshop
after having scanned in (I'm so new to all this: is a 3k dpi drum scan
of a 35mm slide generally sufficient for a 16"x20" if I'm not a clarity
freak)

That's the background. My central questions are, I believe

-What process should I ask for to get a true black and white print
from a) a digital image, and/ or b) a color slide.

-Given I've not had luck in this area talking to some of the custom
labs in my area, can someone recommend a lab (ideally in in the SF
Bay Area, though not exclusively) which can do this

-Does anyone have rough ideas on what one might expect to pay for such
prints (at 16"x20")?

-Is a 3k dpi drum scan of a 35mm slide generally sufficient for a
16"x20" if I'm not a clarity freak?

Thanks for any information on this topic. Please believe that I have I
have done a bit of research at local camera shops, labs, and on the
web, before bothering you. Nevertheless, if there is some faq at
photo.net or whatever, which addresses this topic but which I've not
seen, please feel free to simply put me in contact with that.

Mark Miller
Berkeley, CA

Mark, sounds like you have a computer and a scanner.
The best way to convert your scanned color slides to B&W
is probably a Photoshop tool called "Channel Mixer".
There are many other methods, but this is the best
combination of simplicity and power IMHO.

The real trick is getting a good B&W print once you have
a B&W image in Photoshop. There is an entire Yahoo
discussion group dedicated to this topic:
  groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint

The problems are: metamerism - the tone looks different under
different types of light; bronzing - when you look at the
print at an angle, the white areas appear to be "behind" the
others; and visible dots in the highlights (areas that are
almost white, but have some ink).

These problems are all daunting. It's a bald-faced lie for
Epson to say the Epson 2200 does good B&W prints "out of
the box". HP has a brand-new 8-ink printer that is reputed
to do good B&W prints out of the box.

The good news is that LOTS of exciting stuff is happening,
virutally every day. New software for BW printing (much
of it free, see <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bowhaus.com/inkjetcontrol" target="_blank">www.bowhaus.com/inkjetcontrol</a> and
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html" target="_blank">www.harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html</a>). New inksets
specifically made for B&W printing. New papers. Coating
methods. It's very exiciting, but dauntingly confusing.

The really good news is that the people who have B&W
inkjet printing really worked out seem to be getting
results equal or better than those from a wet darkroom.

Anyhow, go to the Yahoo group and look around.

Good luck, John<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->