JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
I've found the reverse to be true regarding the usefulness of color-B/W conversions: I often desaturate my color camera RAW files, then do curves, levels, contrast, brightness, contrast centering, gamma, etc. adjustments to the B/W RAW image; then resaturate the image back to color and do the final white balance/color and sharpening adjustments. It makes for really outstanding color images if the underlying B/W tonality is set correctly.
~Joe
~Joe