A Bemo in Blitar, Java.

Bemoes in Indonesia are minibuses for local rides. Because they only leave once full (and by ‘full’ I mean ‘full’), I had plenty of time to take this picture.

The picture was taken on a Nikon D90 with Nikon’s new ultra wide angle 10-24 mm lens set to 10 mm. I merged three different exposures with Photomatix Pro (luckily the woman sat really still) to get detail in both highlights and shadows. It was post-processed to B/W using Nik Software’s excellent Silver Efex Pro, which has, together with Lightroom’s Greyscale Conversion, become my tool of choice for digital Black & White.

Because I wanted to maintain maximum flexibility, I chose to call the plugin from within Photoshop, instead of using it straight in Lightroom. To do so, I chose ‘Edit in… Open as Smart Object in Photoshop’ from Lightroom’s Photo menu (you can also get there by right-clicking on a photo or thumbnail in Lightroom’s Film Strip, Grid View or Loupe View’).

This fires up Photoshop (if it’s not already running) and then, all you have to do is call the Silver Efex Plugin from the Filter Menu. Silver Efex will recognize the Smart Object, and apply itself as a Smart Filter. This means that you can change the settings afterwards, something that’s not possible when you use the filter straight in Lightroom.

You can download a fully functional 15-day bemo- (sorry: demo-) version of Silver Efex on Nik Software’s Website: www.niksoftware.com. If you want to use the plugin in Lightroom as well as in Photoshop, you’ll have to download both versions. If you decide to buy the software, your license covers both the Lightroom and the Photoshop version.