The image on the left is the original color image and the image on the right is the image converted
to Black & white using Nik Silver Efex Pro
1. Nik Silver Efex Pro retains all your RGB channel data. This gives you the maximum amount of control over your image. Even though your image is black & white retaining the RGB data makes printing more controllable and allows you to go back and make changes to your black & white files. Just think about it, there is a lot of information in each color channel, why just throw it away? In addition Silver Efex Pro has an intuitive interface. If you’ve ever worked in a darkroom Silver Efex Pro instantly makes sense. This plug-in has lots of features but is not confusing or loaded with dozens of effects that are only minimally different.
2. Control Points: You can set a point anywhere in your digital image and adjust the selected area’s brightness, contrast and structure*. You can create dozens of control points in an image, or copy and paste a control point to automatically apply the identical changes from the copied control point. Control points allow you to easily make changes without time consuming masks and multiple layers. This feature alone would be worth the price of the software as it can save you hours of image editing time.
Control point placed on image and brightness, contrast and structure adjusted
3. Select a Film Type: Silver Efex Pro has amazing presets that allow you to emulate the look and grain of a broad variety of films. The folks at Nik have also figured out how to make the “grain” in your digital photos look like real film grain. The pattern and density varies depending on the density and contrast in the image.
Tri-X 400 is selected from the Film Type menu
4. *Structure: I still haven’t figured out exactly what structure is in the technical geek-speak of software engineers but I know what it looks like. Structure adds the kind of depth and well structure the way that can be obtained in tradition film processing. My example is the way that Tri-X looks if you processed it in D-76 at a higher temperature…ya know what I mean? Well for those of you who are exclusively digital it also appears to add more tonal separation especially in the mid tones.
There area also a plethora of other features that make Nik Silver Efex Pro a “must-have” for anyone working with grayscale digital images. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Nik allows you to download Silver Efex Pro, and use it for FREE for 15 days (I am including the link below). I highly recommend Nik Silver Efex Pro and I can honestly say I actually had FUN learning to use this product!
Download Free trial version of Nik Silver Efex Pro via this link:
http://www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro/usa/entry.php
All images © Andrea Zocchi 2010
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