Black and White High Contrasted Images

I recently heard about an effect using photoshop to create awesome black an white images. It's super easy since you only use the adjustment layers.

Simply click the black and white layer and then add a brightness/contrast layer and push the contrast right up.

I've been able to do this within Gimp as well, however there is less control over the black and white colours 

In Gimp you have to go to Colours > Desaturate and choose one of the three options it gives you (a bit limiting if you are use to Photoshop's vast range of options) and then go to Colours > Brightness/Contrast and adjust the Contrast to however high you want.

You should remember that some images won't work with this effect. I tried it with a grey horse and it turned out rubbish, as if the horse was just overexposed, but the original image looked nice in just plain black and white.

And then again, some images are just best left in colour.