Imagine There's An Image

My visit to Dave Beckerman has me thinking more about black & white, or near-black-and-white images. Dave is using the Power Retouche plug-in for Photoshop to get amazing B&W results from digital color images. I don't have the plug-in (yet,) but playing around with desaturating the color images, then adjusting levels and contrast, is getting me some acceptable B&W results, at least on-screen.

I'm thinking that at this time, I ought to be saving my pennies for this piece of software, rather than for another lens, tripod, etc.