Has anyone tried Nik Software's new plugin for PS, Silver FX Pro. I have just finished my 15 day free trial and am probably going to buy it. I think is is great.

I have dowloaded the trial but had forgotten about it.

This reminds me to take it for a spin. Cheers.

Checkout: http://www.vazaar.com/user:Beamer/photos/id:30629/

Hi Clyde, I have installed Silver FX Pro. Its a great tool, there are lots of features to discover.
But honestly, for photos I am really pleased with, I use my old, longer, and more complicated way of bw conversion . Like this I feel the photo is mine.
The difference is like canned food, heated in the microwave, and a homemade dish. :-)))) ... but both can be good or bad :-)))

I understand your point. I think the best part of the Silver FX is the film stock profiles with the grain and tone curves. Aside from the grain tool in Autodesk's Flame software which I use at work (costs @ $75K US), this is the best for making digital video/photo look like film that I have used. Try just using Nik's neutral and then applying a film stock profile and then do the rest your other way...

yes I bought it. love it. just got an update tonight

They have an update for Silver FX Pro??? Where did you see that?

I got an email from NIK yesterday saying the update resolved some issues...I wasn't having any but downloaded anyway.

I love it.

http://1x.com/photos/member/7481/18941/

http://1x.com/photos/member/7481/17403/

http://1x.com/photos/member/7481/17256/

It is the control points (like all Nik Software like NX2) that is the real power. Especially since when doing it in BW - the control points need to work on the grey equivalent of the colours and not the real similarities between them. If you used Vivezza or NX2 in the same way two colours that look the same in grey scale but are different - if existing inside the same control point area of influence would appear differently and basically renders control points useless in black and white.

Silver Efex Pro fixes that!

Everyone should use Nik software - it (Control points) makes the whole photoshop approach look bloated, cumbersome and slow and looks not as convincing, be it BW or colours said control points.

Cheers,
RF.

Nik Silver Efex is awsome! After 8 years of digital photography, I finally get my black and white pictures great!!

I'm not a B/W specialist,
but the plug in is fantastic, so many possibilities:-))))))= Professional!!!!
The Nik ColorEffex3 Pro is also fantastic and very creative... worth the money:-))

Regards,
Ben

Hi Ben. I have been following the forum on your (maybe) departure, and am very sorry to see you possibly leave.
However, after reading the comments from members that you copied and pasted earlier, I can quite understand.
You will probably realise that the unfortunate souls that should send you such messages
are probably quite challenged by your creative ability and their inability to comprehend the versitality of photography,
and are doing this because of huge insecurity.
They probably represent such a small minority....
Your occasional uploads pleasure many of us, and I am sure that they make many of us utter "How did he think of that, never mind make it?"

The actual reason for this message is about NiK and the 'film-like' potential of that.
There seems to be general consensus that this specific facility is good to have, and once bitten...
I migrated to digital via darkroom for many years, and presently do a fair amount of available low light
portrait-type shots.
However, I am so frustrated with my poor performance afa darks and shadows in digital.
Have invested a fair amount of time studying PS, and wish to hang onto that investment.....
but will grab anything that will make me re-live the potential and look that film represented.
I do not want to go back to wet darkroom, as time does not allow for that anymore.
Can one use NiK as an adjunct to PS, or is this program versatile enough to use as a stand-alone way
of doing B&W.
Guess that there are plenty of sites out there that will give me the answer, but thought that I shall ask
a fellow OE member as yourself.

I'm not sure if they sell it "stand-alone" or not. I use Nik as plugins for PS CS3 and love it. I have both the Silver Efex and the Color Efex. Can they really make a digital capture look like film, well sorta, but not really. I have done some b&w conversions that I am very happy with, but I can still see a difference in a scanned b&w negative.

Some examples:

Digital converted with Nik:



Shot on film and scanned:

Many thanks Clyde. Many obvious similarities here...
Also visited another site that you have referred to and seen some results there.
As I figure it functions as a plug-in and is there when needed.
Getting quite keen to explore this.

As far as standalone as in - you don't need other production software? Then YES! Of course you need aperture or lightroom to run it - but you can do the equivalent of dodge and burn and many other things. ALl my digital BW shots (sans the first 2) were done with SIlver Efex Pro....

It is REALLY GOOD.

I don't like it because it uses the red channel and it gets noise in the sky. the best technique I use for B&W is John Caponigro's tutorial by getting all the channels and the luminosity channel and combining them.

Cheers.

It is a fantastic tool! Of course some bugs in it and you need process your picture in pp well before use silver. I only use it and im quite happy for it. Its worth every single cent:-)

Robert

super program I use it al the time

but will images with arty filter be acceptable on this site?

or some would say, will they ever be turned away???

I expect the real question being what is a creativ eimage in relation to this site?

Well now, you have asked the "holy grail" question now haven't you!!

Since I could not begin to answer, I will sit back and watch the wisdom flow forth...

It will be an interesting selection of thoughts......

I use a nic silver long and it's great

You wanna bet? ;-)

Nik Silver pro does look very good, but the latest Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop can do damn good B&W conversions between them. I shall try the demo, but it is an expensive plug in.

PS is endlessly fascinating, challenging, and effective. Most of the ready-made plugins like Nik are really a collection of actions originally developed using PS. You can produce some nice on-screen results with SilverFx, but as pointed out above, for anything really outstanding you first have to prepare the image well. I do not like the control point technology at all, except as a shortcut for minor adjustments to specific elements in an image which do not occupy a large area, because the effects are concentrated at the centre of the circular field and it shows. Be careful, too, when printing images on which control points have been used, because I have found that those areas stand out in a very ugly way.

brose

http://www.brosepix.com

Example images for that, please.

Do the experiment ;P

brose

http://www.brosepix.com

I tried Nik as demo, and was not that impressed. Too much ready made effects that I simply don't need, and many I don't like.
Just got Genuine Fractals yesterday, and I'm impressed! Didn't bother to try the demo, bought pro at once! And used it straight away at printing large format from images that normally would not be up to it for the sizes ordered. Seems to be some issues with Win 7 64 though, but it works

I have installed and love it - it's just a bit fiddly, opening up all the potential adjustments.

I also have Alien Skin Exposure 2 - which is long-term, my favourite plug-in.

Link is here. http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/index.aspx