Quotes from Robin Whalley

Black and white images often benefit from higher levels of contrast than the same image in colour. Our brains tend to perceive contrast between colours as well as differences in light and dark tones. When we remove the colour from an image we can also inadvertently reduce the perceived contrast.

Ctrl + 1" (hold down the Ctrl key and press the number 1). This will zoom the image to 100% magnification and pressing "Ctrl + 0" zooms out to fit the image to the screen.

Selecting a grey background may be the best option as it has little impact on how you perceive the image.