SFredrickPhoto.com Blog

I’m not big on Photoshop plug-ins. Most of the time they “simplify” things you can already do in Photoshop but at the expense of control.

When I work on an image I start by evaluating the image and deciding where it is I want to take it; that is, what do I want to “say” with the image. After I figure out where I want to take the image then I think about how best to accomplish that in Photoshop. So I’m not big on opening up a filter or a plug-in and then clicking around to see what happens. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I never click and/or drag on a setting to see what will happen–especially when learning to use a new tool.

 Well last week I decided to see what all the fuss was about with the B&W conversion plug-in from Nik called, Silver Effects Pro. I started out with a recent image. Then I did my usual B&W conversion in Lightroom and Photoshop. I got the image to where I wanted and I liked it. Then I took the same image and brought it into PS as a color Smart Object and then ran Silver Effects Pro as a Smart Filter to do the B&W Conversion. (The advantage of doing that is I can go back in at a later date and re-open and edit the filter.) Since I didn’t really know the tool, I then started playing with settings to see if I could get close to what I had done with my old way of doing things.

I then did some last minute cloning and added a slight curves adjustment layer and saved the image. I then used Lightroom to view the two version side by side. It was no contest–the Silver Effect Pro version won hands down.

Looking at the two versions and trying to identify what it was that made the Silver Effects Pro version better I made these mental notes:

1. Concern about lack of control. Through this one out the window. Nik’s Control Points allow the user to easily select areas of the image for local adjustments. The only aspect that I need to experiment with is how accurate a selection it will make when the contrast in adjacent tones are not as strong.
2. Speed of selection. Creating control points and defining the area they cover is very quick compared to painting with the adjustment brush in ACR/LR. Howerver, as I asked in #1,  are the selections as accurate in less than ideal situation?
3. Structure: Silver Effects Pro has sliders (one for global and one for local adjustments) that effect what Nik calls structure. It’s like Clearity in ACR/Lightroom in that it adds midtone micro contrast. (This is an effect that can be created in Photoshop with Unsharp Mask. To get this effect you set the Amount and Radius opposite of how you would for normal sharpening–a low amount and a high radius.) But compared to ACR/LR, Silver Effects Pro seems to have a more pronounced effect. This is what created the strong contrast in the dark centers of the daisies. It also brought out detail to the white petals.

Based on this result, I will be exploring Silver Effects Pro in more detail. Not only do I like the results but, once I get more familiar with the tool, I believe it will be much faster.

The shooting meta data for this image  is:

D200 with 105 macro lens
1/200 sec @ f/3 , ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp -1/3