Having recommended the Nik plug-in suite to my valiant readers, I felt obliged to buy it myself; or at least that is how I explained the expenditure to she who must be obeyed.
What I really wanted to get my hands on was Silver Efex Pro, the black & white converter; but I started by offering a photo of a Bangkok noodle seller to Color (sic) Efex Pro.
Here’s the original photo:
It all looked a bit too bright and cheerful to me, unlike the seller who looked like a pretty tough, well-lived lady. I wanted a look that was bit more earthy, so I just ran through the presets in Color Efex until I arrived at this:
(Click on image to see larger version, it looks better that way).
I am sure it could be improved with a little work; but I really liked the look (your opinion may vary).
Next up was a lady eating noodles (or similar). I liked the image; but I didn’t think it worked in colour. Too many colours, especially with the dress and the pipes coming out of her head; and I wanted more balance with the fan on the right.
Loaded into Silver Efex Pro and again found a preset that gave approximately the look I wanted; and then into the detailed changes panels to fiddle with various controls. Best feature I have found so far is the ability to add control points, which select areas of the image where you can make changes that only impact the highlighted area. Very neat, and I used a control point to fiddle with her face (sorry madam).
(Click on image to see larger version, it looks better that way).
Again, pretty happy with the result and can see many happy hours playing with these plug-ins in the future.
Comments 🔗
2013-04-09| The Heavyweight saysI have only experimented with them a bit, and they are impressive, but to me it seems that the images always come out of the Nik plugins brighter than the original. Could it be that the default settings of these tools are set for making the picture brighter? This last b&w of your’s also looks brighter than the previous b&w version of this picture.
2013-04-09| robin saysThe first shot is very overdone. I would guess instantly that you used Nik… and which filter. Enhancing detail is best done with a subtle hand and masked so the background doesn’t get the same effect… it plays havoc with bokeh.
2013-04-09| robin saysYou can tweak just about everything in the conversion, including the brightness. Most useful is the colour filter being used.
2013-04-09| The Heavyweight saysThanks robin. I thought it must be adjustable, but I still have to find my way into these plugins.
2013-04-09| Spike saysWhat you get initially is the first preset (from a long list of presets) applied to the image, so it doesn’t mean very much. Browse through until you find a preset that is closest to what you looking for, the play with all the adjustments available. As Robin mentions, the colour filters are very powerful.
2013-04-09| Spike saysWell I did say it was just a quick preset selection. And of course a subtle hand is not what I am known for.