05-16-2012, 03:34 AM
[quote name='wim' timestamp='1337108795' post='18226']
I don't see why the colour filters don't work well in Silver Efex and/.or Colour Efex. You need to work the contrast and brightness sliders as well, plus potentially a host of others. You also need to do the B&W conversion first, prior to applying the B&W colour filters, i find, or use the options in Nik Silver Efex to do this straight away.
I tend to use a combination of Nik and TopazLabs software for best effects, Topaz for overall changes and/or denoising, and Nik for the delicate work, and for the B&W conversion plus filtering.
As to Ansel Adams: he specifically exposed and developed his negatives, for a specific tonal range, depending on the subject. That you can achieve in digital, starting from a 16-bit tiff, dng or psd file, with a combination of specific exposure, B&W conversion, filters, and with brightness and contrast adjustments. When printing such a negative, Ansel then did burning and dodging, etc. This you can do with Nik software (Silver Efex0 quite easily. This is also possible in Photoshop or any other post processing software, but Nik makes it easy and straightforward. Once happy, save the 16 -bit image to an 8-bit jpeg, and you're done. Works well.
Actually, the fact that the pictures I have seen from the Leica M-Monochrome weren't processed I think is a terrible pity, because that would have really shown what is possible, especially as the monochrome sensor is quite unforgiving from a latitude POV.
Kind regards, Wim
[/quote]
Hi Wim:
I don't have a Silver Efex so I have no experience with it. I choosed to buy the Colour Efex 3.0 because it supports NX2 (Silver Efex does not) and I am used to NX2.
When you make BW conversion with Colour Efex or NX2, there is a colour filter adjustment slider. I find that with this filter bar, the effect of red and yelow filters are minor, unless you move the slider all the way to the left end then an IR-like effect is produced.
Another odd thing (but other people told me this is not odd) with the BW conversion in Colour Efex/NX2 is that, the default BW image procuced by the conversion often looks like heavily underexposed (unless the original colour image is very bright). A lot of details are lost in the dark area, while the high light part is not bright at all. Yes, this can be fixed with the "shadow recovery" slider, but it often requires a large value to set to get the details in the shadow area (30%-70% is quite normal).
Best regards,
Frank
I don't see why the colour filters don't work well in Silver Efex and/.or Colour Efex. You need to work the contrast and brightness sliders as well, plus potentially a host of others. You also need to do the B&W conversion first, prior to applying the B&W colour filters, i find, or use the options in Nik Silver Efex to do this straight away.
I tend to use a combination of Nik and TopazLabs software for best effects, Topaz for overall changes and/or denoising, and Nik for the delicate work, and for the B&W conversion plus filtering.
As to Ansel Adams: he specifically exposed and developed his negatives, for a specific tonal range, depending on the subject. That you can achieve in digital, starting from a 16-bit tiff, dng or psd file, with a combination of specific exposure, B&W conversion, filters, and with brightness and contrast adjustments. When printing such a negative, Ansel then did burning and dodging, etc. This you can do with Nik software (Silver Efex0 quite easily. This is also possible in Photoshop or any other post processing software, but Nik makes it easy and straightforward. Once happy, save the 16 -bit image to an 8-bit jpeg, and you're done. Works well.
Actually, the fact that the pictures I have seen from the Leica M-Monochrome weren't processed I think is a terrible pity, because that would have really shown what is possible, especially as the monochrome sensor is quite unforgiving from a latitude POV.
Kind regards, Wim
[/quote]
Hi Wim:
I don't have a Silver Efex so I have no experience with it. I choosed to buy the Colour Efex 3.0 because it supports NX2 (Silver Efex does not) and I am used to NX2.
When you make BW conversion with Colour Efex or NX2, there is a colour filter adjustment slider. I find that with this filter bar, the effect of red and yelow filters are minor, unless you move the slider all the way to the left end then an IR-like effect is produced.
Another odd thing (but other people told me this is not odd) with the BW conversion in Colour Efex/NX2 is that, the default BW image procuced by the conversion often looks like heavily underexposed (unless the original colour image is very bright). A lot of details are lost in the dark area, while the high light part is not bright at all. Yes, this can be fixed with the "shadow recovery" slider, but it often requires a large value to set to get the details in the shadow area (30%-70% is quite normal).
Best regards,
Frank