Those of you who have followed this blog and the sister blog PortraitsOfAsia.be, know that I’m a big fan of good, oldfashioned Black & White. Probably stems from my darkroom days. What can I say?
When I changed over to digital, getting a good Black & White print proved to me the most difficult aspect of the whole digital photography scene. Before Photoshop CS3, getting the right B/W conversion was something akin to digital alchemy, with different methods, such as the famous Russell Brown’s double Hue Sat Adjustment Layer technique or the Channel Mixer approach.
And even if you had finally, after long hours of fiddling with sliders, come up with a good B/W conversion, you could be sure that your printer would mess it up. Printers, up until five years ago were all aimed at colour printing, and only a few manufacturers, led by Epson, realised the importance of Black and White. But even then, the first so called ‘Optimized for B&W’ printers still left a lot to be desired: issues such as bronzing and metamerism made it hard to turn that good-looking screen version into an equally astonishing print. Some turned to dedicated B/W ink sets, but, judging by forum entries on sites as LuminousLandscape.com, not everyone was equally satisfied with the results or the cumbersome maintenance process.
Now, with Raw files, Photoshop CS3/CS4 and Lightroom, conversion to B/W has become easier, although that ease might be a deceptive one: underneath the simplicity of adjusting the sliders still lures a swamp of complexities (clipping, noise issues, dynamic range) where many a Black and White conversion gets dragged into.
Likewise, new printers such as the latest Epsons, or the HPZ3100, which was the first printer I really enjoyed for B/W printing, and an overwhelming array of papers, have expanded the range of B/W possibilities. A heaven of opportunities for some, the agony of choice for others.
And now there’s even a new tool available for digital B/W enthousiasts (in fact, it’s been out for a while, but only now have I had a chance to work with it). It’s called Silver Efex Pro and uses Nik Software’s patented U-point technology to enable you to create beautiful and realistic B/W conversions. Since my main worfklow revolves around Lightroom (as you might know by now), I’m very happy that this software is available as a plugin for Lightroom.
Just like Lightroom in version 2, Silver Efex enables you to apply local corrections to files. There are two main differences, however: Lightroom works non-destructively on your Raw-files, whereas Silver Efex works on a 16 bit (if you set it up that way) rendered Tiff file. The second difference is the way you make selections: in Lightroom, you do so with the adjustment brush or the graduated filter tool; in Silver Efex you add Control points that have four sliders: one for the size of the point (limiting the effect of the other three sliders), and then one for brightness, contrast and structure (which is something like Lightroom’s Clarity). The U-points intelligently define the selection, making sure it is as seamless as possible.
For me, the power of Silver Efex lies in its integration with Lightroom (there is also a Photoshop plugin which offers Smart-Object-like non-destructive editing. I hope to report on that later). I tried Silver Efex Pro on this picture of a Balinese boatsman.
There were several ‘issues’ I wanted to address in this picture:
- Darkening the hotspot on the left (from the viewer’s perspective) wooden outrigger
- Intensifying the sky
- Brightening the rather dark zone in the bottom right quarter
I first chose one of the presets (you can save your own settings as a preset): High Structure.
Then I started adding Control Points for the different ‘Problem Areas’. Each Control Point allows you to specify a radius (as indicated by a circle, not however that the resulting selection is not a plain circle, as Silver Efex calculates the actual selection automatically and intelligently) and, for that range, allows you to alter the Brightness, Contrast and Structure. You can toggle between the ‘simplified’ view of the selection or seeing the actual selection itself.
If your Control Point starts to unwantedly affect other areas of the picture, you can do two things:
- either decrease the range of the Control Point
- or, and this is very well thought of indeed, add another – Control Point with default Brightness, Contrast and Structure settings in the area you wish to protect.
Furthermore, you have the ability to experiment with color filters, to change the look of your conversion. Under the Stylizing section, you can add two kinds of vignettes. I chose not to do this for this picture, but instead turned to the ‘Film Types’ Panel, where you can add a very realistic grain. The Silver Efex grain engine is different from just overlaying a noise layer in Photoshop in that it uses the actual pixel data to create the grain. The result is a very natural and realistic looking grain structure. If you choose one of the film presets, you Silver Efex will not only mimic the grain, but also the tonal response and contrast of that specific film. I chose Ilford HP5, because that’s the film I used to use in the darkroom, but, since I had already defined the contrast and the look earlier on in my Silver Efex workflow, I zeroed out those aspects of the film simulation, leaving only the grain. (Alternatively, I could have chosen ‘Neutral’ from the Film Types dropdown list, and only adjust the grain level).
Back in Lightroom, I exported this picture to Photoshop via the Edit Original command and subtly used the Liquify Filter to slightly reduce the size of the fisherman’s feet (an unwanted side-effect of the Ultra Wide Nikon 10-24 used at 10 mm).
You can download a 15-day trial version of Silver Efex Pro over at Nik Software’s site.
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