What is the best Core Image filter to produce black and white effects?

Question

I am using Core Image and would like to produce a black and white effect on the chosen image.

Ideally I would like to have access to the same sort of options that a

Answer 1

macOS (NSImage) Swift 3 version of @FBente's conversion of @Shmidt's answer:

extension NSImage
{
    func imageBlackAndWhite() -> NSImage?
    {
        if let cgImage = self.cgImage(forProposedRect: nil, context: nil, hints: nil)
        {
            let beginImage = CIImage.init(cgImage: cgImage)
            let paramsColor: [String : AnyObject] = [kCIInputBrightnessKey: NSNumber(value: 0.0),
                                                     kCIInputContrastKey:   NSNumber(value: 1.1),
                                                     kCIInputSaturationKey: NSNumber(value: 0.0)]
            let blackAndWhite = beginImage.applyingFilter("CIColorControls", withInputParameters: paramsColor)

            let paramsExposure: [String : AnyObject] = [kCIInputEVKey: NSNumber(value: 0.7)]
            let output = blackAndWhite.applyingFilter("CIExposureAdjust", withInputParameters: paramsExposure)

            if let processedCGImage = CIContext().createCGImage(output, from: output.extent) {
                return NSImage(cgImage: processedCGImage, size: self.size)
            }
        }
        return nil
    }
}