Shading (single channel)
This channel shows the result of the Diffuse and Specular channels, without color information.

Shadow (single channel)
This is a helpful channel that shows the intensity of cast Shadows on surfaces. Black means there are no shadows cast upon that surface, white means that the density of that shadow is 100%.

Geometry (single channel)
This channel shows you mesh and bump information With Respect To the camera. pixels that are turned directly toward the camera are white, while those perpendicular to the camera are black.

Depth ("Z-Buffer," single channel)
Depth is a helpful channel that shades pixels WRT their distance from the camera. In LightWave's renderer, pixels furthest from the Camera are white, and those closest to the camera are black. Using a Depth-Buffer (correctly,) you can instantly boost the production-value of your scene by using it as a mask to composite a de-saturated version of your image over the original to suggest atmospheric perspective, or re-light it by adding "Depth-Fog" set to black to darken items farther from the camera, or use it to composite complex, rendered elements into rendered backgrounds without the need of an Alpha channel! (We'll explore some of the uses of Depth Buffers in the next article.)

NOTE:
Most applications treat Z/Depth Buffers inversely to how LW does, where black is assigned to representing the farthest distances away from the camera and white, the closest. If your compositing package expects Depth information in this manner, (like eyeon's Digital Fusion,) you'll need to Invert LightWave's Z-Buffer. Tools like exrTrader have a handy "Invert" check-box for their channels.