PP software to compliment Elements would be silver Effex Pro. This will help you convert color to.black and white with one or 2 click. Their presets are wonderful and fully adjustable one you are familiar with the program.

This will give you an idea of what just a click of the mouse and moving a brightness slider can do using a PS plugin

B&W should be done on the computer. This gives you more control and a much better result. There are several methods to convert an image to B&W on the computer. There are PS plugins that will do a wonderful job. There are also several other methods using PhotoShop. If anyone is interested I would be glad to send a mini tutorial on how to do it.