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I noticed this for years really. Once you convert a render to greyscale, you see how little contrast survives at rendertime. I'm sure there is an explanation.

Anyway, I zipped the scene up with the Zbrushed object if anyone wants a go at it. Send me a sm to email to.

I would go at this from a photographers POV...
Render to HDR... this should give you much more data to play with...
(like shooting in RAW vs. JPG)
Then take it into Photoshop...

Here's a nice, short article about creating b/w images in Photoshop...
http://photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/advanced-photoshop-tutorials/converting-to-black-and-white/

Martin 

Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.