1. A method for converting a color image to a monochrome image that takes into account chrominance variations, the method, comprising: converting a color image into a luminance component and one or more chrominance components; high pass filtering at least one chrominance component of the color image to compute at least one high pass filtered chrominance component; modifying the otherwise unaltered luminance component of the color image based upon the at least one high pass filtered chrominance component to create a modified luminance signal; and without further modifying the modified luminance signal, generating a monochrome output image directly from and based solely upon the modified luminance signal.