The Brush Tool can also be used to retouch portraits and burn or dodge specific areas of the photograph. The X2 version adds a Spot Healing Panel for portrait retouching so you don’t have to switch between apps. This plug-in has its roots in emulating black-and-white and color film stock, such as Kodak’s Portra 160, 400, and 800, along with Ilford XP2 400, Kodak BW400CN and T-Max 400. Why I Like It: It’s great software and it’s free…for the time being.Īs we go to press, I’ve been working with a beta version of Alien Skin Software’s Exposure X2 that should be available real soon now. Who’s It For: Any photographers who like to create monochrome images. Silver Efex Pro is part of the free Nik Collection that also includes Color Efex Pro and Analog Efex Pro, both of which include a few black-and-white conversion options, and is available for Mac OS and Windows. All of this is wrapped in a wonderfully intuitive interface and the results can’t be beat. But it’s these sliders which include more than 20 adjustments that make the plug-in so useful, letting you tweak brightness, contrast, and structure, along with adding grain and border effects. Use the presets as a starting point and create your own customized black-and-white style using controls for color filters, vignettes, and toning. ![]() Silver Efex Pro’s presets include small preview thumbnails and options range from historic processes to images emulating specific film types. Many of us cynics think it means that it’s unlikely the software will be updated, so we’re waiting for the next Photoshop or OS update to break it. The following are a few of mine.Īs I write this, Silver Efex Pro from Google via Nik Software is free, so download it. Back in the film days, darkroom gurus jealously guarded their film processing formulae and nowadays you’re just as likely to hear their digital descendants raving about different products for converting color files into monochrome and everybody has their favorites. Only after retouching do you convert the image to black and white. Why? Because there are more tones available, most portrait retouching software, even Photoshop, works better with color files. The Raw+JPEG technique is useful when making portraits because you can show the subject a black-and-white photograph on the LCD screen even though you’re capturing a color file that can be later processed into monochrome. Some dual-slot cameras, like the Pentax K-1 I recently tested (see my review on page 40), let you simultaneously save each file type onto a different card. ![]() ![]() When using this technique with mirrorless cameras the EVF lets you view the image in black and white. I set the camera for Raw+JPEG capture and then select Monochrome mode, which provides an in-camera preview of what the image will look like in black and white. ![]() To get out of a rut I like to shoot images in direct monochrome. Proving you can, in fact, change your tune Paul Simon revised the lyrics to “Kodachrome” when performing the song in Central Park in 1991 to “everything looks better in black and white.” Picky photographers insist “monochrome” is more precise because it covers images made using sepia, blue, or other tones, while images using only shades of gray are black and white. “Everything looks worse in black and white.”-Paul Simon, the original lyrics to “Kodachrome”
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