Convert RGB to Grayscale in ImageMagick command-line

Question

How do I convert a RGB image (3 channels) to a grayscale one, using the (r+g+b)/3 method? I look through an examples page: http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/color_mods/#grays

Answer 1

I use this with good result for gray-scale images (I convert from PNG):

ls ./*.png | xargs -L1 -I {} convert {} -strip -interlace JPEG -sampling-factor 4:2:0 -gaussian-blur 0.05 -colorspace Gray -quality 20  {}.jpg

I use this for scanned B&W pages get them to gray-scale images (the extra arguments cleans shadows from previous pages):

ls ./*.png | xargs -L1 -I {} convert {} -strip -interlace JPEG -sampling-factor 4:2:0 -gaussian-blur 0.05 -colorspace Gray -quality 20 -density 300 -fill white -fuzz 40% +opaque "#000000" -density 300 {}.jpg