The folks over at Nik Software have just released Color Efex Pro 4, so I thought it might be a good idea to do a video on some of the new features. I can already tell you that if you’re a Color Efex Pro 3 user, there’s one new feature that’s by itself worth the upgrade price: the ability to stack effects on top of each other! And if you’re new to Color Efex Pro, the video will give you an idea as to what it can do.

Color Efex Pro is one of Nik’s flagship products and is widely used by landscape and portrait photographers worldwide, to enhance their images. There’s an array of 55 filters, ranging from practical and time-saving (such as Dynamic Skin Softener) to creative (such as the new film simulation presets). The video below only shows a couple of effects. For a full list, check out the Nik Website. The video also features some of the advantages of using Color Efex Pro as a Smart Filter in Photoshop.* Tip: make sure to watch the video fullscreen by clicking the fullscreen button in the video player interface (I also had to break the video up in two parts).

If you’re interested in more, I’ll be doing a free English Color Efex Pro webinar for Nik on October 19th. For registrations, go to the UK site of Nik Software (choose the UK flag from the top right of the main www.niksoftware.com site), select Webinars & Training from the Training tab and you’ll find my training under the ‘Webinar Specials’ section. I’ll also be giving the same webinar in Dutch that day. Registration for that webinar can be done through this link.

One more thing: if you’re from outside of Europe, and you’re interested in buying Color Efex Pro 4, or any other of the Nik plugins, using discount code MORETHANWORDS15 in the online Nik Software US Store, will get you 15% off!

* Color Efex Pro can be bought as a separate plugin, in which case it works in Aperture, Lightroom and Photoshop. You can also buy it as part of a bundle, of which there exist three:
The Complete Collection for Lightroom, the Complete Collection for Aperture and the Complete Collection for Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop. The first two will only work in their respective host program, while the latter works in any of the three programs. While the actual effects are the same and you can therefore create entirely the same image with Color Efex in Lightroom as you can in Aperture or in Photoshop, using Color Efex Pro (or any other Nik filter, for that matter) in Photoshop allows for some extra cool features, such as using it as a Smart Filter. Smart Filters in Photoshop have a lot of advantages, so I thought it would be cool to include some of those in the video as well.

English readers: this blogpost announces my Dutch workshop on Digital Black & White conversion, ‘From Megapixel to Mono Print’.

Op maandag 3 oktober van 9u30 tot 17u30 organiseer ik voor de zevende keer de Masterclass rond digitale zwartwit-conversie ‘From Megapixel to Mono Print’.

De workshop werd nog een pak praktischer gemaakt en bevat nu twee delen: in de voormiddag theorie rond zwartwit-conversie, in de namiddag passen we de technieken toe op eigen beelden van de deelnemers. We eindigen met het afdrukken van de beste foto’s op digitaal bariet en fine art papier, ter beschikking gesteld door Hahnemühle FineArt.

Het aantal deelnemers is beperkt tot 8. Meer info en inschrijvingen via deze link.

My webinar will be on the techniques I use to create dramatic Black & White images. I strongly believe that if you want to have strong black and whites, automatic is not the way to go: on the animation to the left, you see a number of color originals with their auto black & white conversion and then the advanced, ‘dramatic’ black & white.

During the webinar, I’ll be using Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop and plugins. I’ll be showing ACR/Lightroom-only techniques as well as more a more complex workflows. I’ll give a lot of attention to the noble art of dodging and burning, or localised adjustments, as they are the best way to bring any picture and especially a black and white one to life. I’ll also demo a custom Dodging & Burning Photoshop Panel I’ve created and… there might even be a special discount code for that

RetouchPro webinars are known for their high value and I only hope I can live up to that reputation. If you’re interested, check me out on Saturday, June 11th at 12.00 hrs CDT, that’s 19.00 hrs Brussels time. Cost of attendance is only $10. You can register here.

Last week, I announced the availability of my very first English e-book on Black & White in Adobe Lightroom, called ‘The Power of Black & White in Adobe Lightroom & Beyond’. The e-book is available through Craft & Vision as a 100 page PDF. It can be read on a computer with the free Acrobat Reader and also on an iPad through an App such as GoodReader.

Personally, I prefer to read the PDF on my iPad through GoodReader (which also allows me to make annotations and highlight stuff), but for those of you who prefer ‘native’ iPad Apps, you can now get the App version of the book over at the iTunes store. This link will let you choose between the regular PDF or the iPad App. The price is the same for both: a mere 5 USD or 4 €.

I’m usually not the kind to blow my own trumpet, but I’m proud to say ‘The Power of Black & White…’ has made quite a debut: it was the best launch of any Craft & Vision e-book so far and by the looks of it, the iPad App is off to the same start. This would not have been possible without the very talented team over at Craft & Vision, but especially not without you, the readers! Therefore, I’d like to thank every one of you who has bought the book and spread the word about it on Twitter and Facebook.

Finally, I’d also like to thank David Duchemin, an exceptional photographer an teacher and the founder of Craft & Vision for giving me the opportunity to write it. I hope you’ll join me in wishing him a good recovery from the nasty fall he took yesterday in Italy while setting up to take a photo.

I’m happy to announce that my first e-book, The Power of Black & White in Adobe Lightroom and Beyond has just been published on www.craftandvision.com and is available as of now!

C&V is the brainchild of acclaimed photographer and bestselling author David Duchemin. C&V hosts a range of photography-related e-books at incredibly low prices: they’re just $ 5 each. On average once a month there’s a new title added to the site, and this time it’s been written by yours truly

Those of you who follow this site some time know that I’m a big fan of B&W: I wrote an article about it for this month’s Shoot magazine and regularly host workshops about the subject in which we go from capture to print.

In The Power of Black & White in Adobe Lightroom & Beyond, I’ve summarized the techniques I use to create rich, dramatic Black & White pictures. I focus on Adobe Lightroom, but since Lightroom & Adobe Camera Raw share the same processing engine, this e-book will also be useful if you work in Adobe Camera Raw. I also included an overview of some of the Lightroom Plugins I use.

Weighing in at 100 spreads, this is the largest book on the Craft & Vision site. It’s divided into 10 chapters and 3 case studies

• Chapter 1: Digital Black & White Dos & Don’ts
• Chapter 2: The Basics of Black & White Conversion
• Chapter 3: Introducing Lightroom’s Black & White Conversion Tools
• Case Study 1: The Endless Possibilities of the Black & White Adjustment Panel
• Chapter 4: Lightroom Black & White Workflow
• Case Study 2: Making the Most of an All-but-perfect Original
• Case Study 3: With a little help from my (Photoshop) Friends
• Chapter 5: Pros and Cons of using Presets
• Chapter 6: Dodging & Burning with Graduated Filters and the Adjustment Brush
• Chapter 7: Lightroom Plugins for Black & White Conversion
• Chapter 8: High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR) and Black & White
• Chapter 9: The Finishing Touches: Selective Color, Tinting & Toning & Image Borders
• Chapter 10: The Print

If by now you haven’t rushed over to the Craft & Vision site yet and would like some more convincing, here’s three more reasons to do so:

1) until April 16th, 2011, 11.59 PST, if you use promotional code BWLIGHT4 upon checkout, you’ll get a 20% discount on the book (pdf version only) but there’s more!

2) If you purchase five or more books (remember, they’re all priced @ $ 5 each) and you use the promotional code BWLIGHT20, you get a 20% discount on your entire purchase (pdf versions only). You shouldn’t have much trouble finding 4 more that appeal to you. But, there’s still more! Anyone else thinks I’m starting to sound like one of those Shopping Channel Commercials? ’If you order now, you get the free Muscle Trainer Pro!’

3) No, we’ve got something far better than that! Who needs a perfect body if you can have perfect pixels: one of the plugins that I talk about in the book is Silver Efex Pro 2 from Nik Software. The people of Nik have provided three copies that will be randomly distributed among people buying the book before April 16th, 2011, 11.59 PST

www.craftandvision.com

P.S. You can buy the book with a Paypal account or, if you don’t have one, just with your credit card. After payment is approved, you’ll have the choice of either downloading it in 4 separate parts (if you have a slow download capacity) or, if you have a fast connection, just use the last option to download the file as one PDF (which is what I would recommend)!

If you’re interested in learning what new features Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 has in store, check out Thursday’s webinar. This one is in Dutch, but there will be another one in English later this month. More about that in due time. For the Dutch webinar, you can register here. Best of all, it’s completely free!

English Readers: this blogpost is about a Dutch article, webinar and workshop I’ll be doing in March on B&W conversion techniques

Artikel over Zwartwit in Shoot

Degenen die deze blog al wat langer volgen, weten dat ik een voorliefde heb voor zwartwit. Het was dan ook met veel plezier dat ik voor de Shoot van deze maand een artikel van 8 bladzijden schreef over mijn favoriete digitaal zwartwit. Shoot ligt nu in de krantenwinkel. Je kan hem zo herkennen aan de zwartwit-foto van de knappe Megan, geen onbekende voor wie al eens een workshop volgde. De foto werd geconverteerd naar zwartwit met Silver Efex Pro 2.

Gratis webinar over Silver Efex Pro

Wie meer wil weten over Silver Efex, is bij deze van harte uitgenodigd op de webinar die ik op donderdag 3 maart, 20u ‘s avonds geef over deze nieuwe Lightroom, Aperture en Photoshop plugin. De webinar duurt ongeveer drie kwartier + een vragenronde (via chat) van een kwartiertje. Gratis inschrijven kan via deze link.

Shoot Session over zwartwit-conversie

Hoor je het liever allemaal eens face-to-face, inclusief de volledige Lightroom & Photoshop workflow om tot sprekende zwartwit-beelden te komen, kom dan naar de Shoot-Session over Zwartwit-fotografie. De eerste datum van 5 maart was in amper één week uitverkocht, zodat we een tweede datum – eveneens in Gent – ingelast hebben op zaterdag 12 maart, van 13u30 tot 17u30.

Op het programma staan ondermeer:

• Tips voor de opname
• Zwartwit-conversietechnieken in Lightroom & Photoshop
• Interessante plugins
• Speciale technieken zoals dubbele raw-conversies, werken met laagmaskers, HDR-opnames
• Professioneel doordrukken en tegenhouden met het exclusieve MoreThanWords Photoshop Palet
• Afwerkingstechnieken: toning & negatiefranden toevoegen
• Tips voor afdrukken en keuze van papiersoorten

We demonstreren er tevens de Epson 2880 en 3880, twee fenomenale zwartwit-printers. De prijs voor deze workshop bedraagt 89 €, inclusief drank, uitgebreide syllabus en een DVD met het MoreThanWords Photoshop Palet. Meer info en inschrijven kan via deze link.

En tenslotte…

Ik hoop jullie eind deze maand nog een ander zwartwit-initiatief aan te kondigen. Geen tijdschrift-artikel, geen webinar en ook geen workshop… Rarara

From my analogue days on, I’ve always been a Black & White aficionado. When I switched to digital, I discovered digital B&W was one very complex matter: the early printers had a hard time producing decent, neutral black & white prints and software companies… well, they mostly seemed to cater to those of us interested in color. Digital B&W was the exclusive playground of digital alchemists, using secret Channel Mixer formulas in Photoshop. Then came Photoshop CS3 with the B&W Adjustment layer, which made B&W in the binary world a lot more intuitive. And then came Nik with the first incarnation of Silver Efex Pro, a dedicated B&W plugin for Lightroom & Photoshop. It had been created from the ground up with the analogue photographer in mind and… it showed! I remember I thought I had never seen a first version of a software package that looked so complete: Ansel Adam’s zone system? Check! Toning controls? Check! Presets to quickly get you started? Check! Accurate simulations of your favorite analogue film, including it’s grain structure? Check! Localized control (think millimeter-precisie dodging & burning) without the need of making complex selections? Check!

Needless to say Silver Efex Pro quickly became a frequent guest in my overall Lightroom & Photoshop B&W workflow. I also remember thinking ‘What on earth will they come up with for version 2?’. Well, I’ve had the opportunity to play around with a beta version for some time and I can only say: the best just got even better. There’s simply more of everything that made SEP 1 so noticeable. Not only more presets, but especially: more control. You now have the option of targeting the Brightness and the Structure of the Midtones, Highlights and Shadows separately. There’s a new Dynamic Brightness slider that… dynamically adjusts brightness, taking into account the whole scene, instead of simply uniformly increasing or decreasing it. Also new is a History Browser that allows you to choose a specific history state as the ‘Before view’, much like Lightroom’s History Palette allows you to.

Those of you who used to print their frames with a negative border will be pleased to see that option is now available from within the plugin, as you can see from the screenshot. There are fourteen base versions to choose from and you can tweak them further with a randomize button. Slightly less messy – but admittedly slightly less adventurous – than filing out your negative carrier in the darkroom days! The frames have been created to suit any orientation of photograph. Just remember: if you want to stay (at least somewhat) true to analogue tradition, you should only use them on uncropped images

Silver Efex Pro 2 should be available in February. In Europe, the price is 199 € including VAT but… there’s currently a 10% discount for version 1 with a free (downloadable) upgrade to version two when that is available. Silver Efex Pro is also available as part of Nik’s Complete Collection.

More info over at www.niksoftware.com. I’ll also be doing a Dutch webinar on Silver Efex Pro in march. Check the blog for further details on that.