Trying out this black and white thing

My friend Lisa has started a new weekly photo challenge called Black and White Wednesday (actually it's not really new, I'm just scared of black and white so I procrastinated forever). Anyhow, this week I decided to participate. I was playing around with the daunting Manual setting on the dang camera today, trying to figure out how the heck "real" photographers get that breathtaking exposure and perfect white balance. And these ended up being the photos I used. The girls were separated for a little quiet time and Ree, bored by her sister's absence, agreed to sit (relatively) still and let me try out a whole bunch of settings on the camera. It was a cloudy, dreary day, so we didn't have much light and I had her by the window because I was trying to wring every drop of luminance out of that weak little sun. I think I'm blathering on because I'm afraid to put these photos out there, so I'll shut up now and post my black and white pics. Fine, here they are... (Lightroom editing stuff: converted to grayscale, increased the blacks a tiny bit, adjusted a bunch of the color levels, applied the Cold Tone preset, adjusted the exposure/saturation/vibrance down a little bit, tried to desaturate the blues that snuck into the eyes) (Lightroom editing stuff: applied the B&W High Contrast preset, pulled the saturation levels down, increased the blacks, bumped exposure up a little) (Lightroom editing stuff: converted to grayscale, bumped blacks up a little, applied the Cold Tone preset, decreased saturation a little, tried to desaturate the blues that snuck into the eyes) Well shoot, these ended up being kinda fun. Maybe I won't be so scared next time! I don't ever do black and white, so while I added the editing details on what I did underneath each photo, please know that these are by no means the "right" ways or "expert" ways of doing things. Basically I took the photos in color, then converted to black and white in Lightroom and played around with different things until they looked good to me and had slight underlying color tints (because I don't like stark gray faces). For camera setting stuff: I used Manual mode (gasp) on my Nikon D300, and ended up using the 18-200 lens, 1/80 sec at f5.6, focal length 150mm, and ISO 500. And I used spot metering for the exposure, although to be honest I don't even know if that metering choice works in the Manual mode. Heh. I guess I'll either have to check the manual or bribe TubaDad to read it for me. Oh, and here's what the original colors looked like, in case you're curious. To see all the other fun Black and White Wednesday entries, check out Lisa's post today.