During my years at the Academy I spent a lot of time printing black and white images in the darkroom. During that period, my work consisted mainly of black and white. Simulating a black and white look and feel for a digital color image used to be a lot more difficult because of limitations in the software. You could and still can apply the usual techniques in Photoshop of course, such as Hue/Saturation, Black & White, Channel Mixer, and disabling the a and b channel when your image is converted to Lab Color. If you work exclusively in Lightroom you can definitely use the sliders in the Black & White Mix Panel which can be found in the Develop Module.
Obviously, each of these tools has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that you have less control because the changes are usually applied equally to the entire image. You can’t only adjust those parts of the picture where you want the effect to be applied, unless you use layer masks which are somewhat time consuming if you have to manage multiple layers and layer masks in your image. My black and white images are usually created using these techniques and, if necessary, reinforced by one or more additional presets in Lightroom or Photoshop.
NIK Software offers the solution with Silver Efex Pro 2 (available both as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture) that allows you to easily and intuitively convert your images to black and white. Silver Efex contains a lot of presets and settings you can adjust manually. It lets you change brightness and structure separately for both highlights, midtones and shadows. The latest version of Silver Efex also includes a slider that allows you to change the dynamic brightness, taking into account the tones throughout the picture so the impact will be stronger in some parts and not just evenly spread over the entire image, as I above mentioned. This also applies to the control points I will explain in the next section.
NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 uses the so-called U-Point Technology that was introduced a few years ago with the release of Nikon Capture NX. This technique allows you to add one or more control points to the image in order to finetune specific parts without modifying the rest of the image.
Based on your selection, the software calculates which pixels are subject to these adjustments, which pixels less or not at all. With a control point you can adjust the following: Brightness, Contrast, Structure, Amplify Whites, Amplify Blacks, Fine Structure, Selective Colorization.
NIK Silver Efex Pro is clearly designed with the analog black and white photographer in mind. Besides a list of analog film presets, various toning and vignetting options, artistic film frames and reinforcing film grain, the software also contains Ansel Adams’ Zone System: point the eyedropper on an area and Silver Efex Pro will show you which parts of the image correspond to which zone. Very useful!
To conclude, I’d like to inform you that I open my images in Photoshop by converting them to Smart Objects. The advantage of this technique is the fact that you can re-open Silver Efex Pro and repeat the process or modify the adjustments you previously made.
From now on, Silver Efex Pro will be integrated into my workflow and replaces all previous techniques I mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Want to try out the software before purchasing? No problem. A demo version of Silver Efex Pro 2 can be downloaded at their website and is valid for fifteen days. The software itself costs €199,95. When you buy the NIK Complete Collection which contains all of their plugins, you pay €299,95 for the Lightroom or Aperture Edition, and €599,95 for the Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture Edition.
NIK USA and NIK Europe regularly organize English webinars to introduce their range of products. During these webinars, participants are given a promotional code which allows them to purchase the software with a discount.
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Heb vroeger al eens naar deze software gekeken als interessante toevoeging aan Ps. Ik begrijp van jou echter dat je in feite alle z/w omzettingen en bewerkingen nu rechtstreeks in Efex Pro uitvoert, zonder de Ps-mogelijkheden nog verder te gebruiken.
Toch nog maar eens bekijken, lijkt me de moeite.
Patrick, je kan een trial downloaden, zeker eens proberen!
Thanks you for your explanation of the features in Silver Efex Pro. I would like to ask: at the end you spoke of using it as a smart object so you can modify the adjustments you previously made. Does this mean that you can adjust your previous editing in Silver Efex the way one can do in Lightroom, or must you redo it if you want a different effect?
Thanks
Peter Brandt
Peter, using the image as Smart Object in Photoshop gives you the possibility to re-open Silver Efex and work on the adjustments you previously made. If you want a different effect you can start over from scratch or you can use the previous effect, make the changes and save your file with a different file name. It’s also possible to have two Smart Object layers in one image, each with their own Silver Efex effect.