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Author Topic: NIK Silver Efex Pro for BW Printing  (Read 3866 times)

booksmartstudio

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NIK Silver Efex Pro for BW Printing
« on: July 15, 2008, 02:35:31 pm »

Check out this new software.  Complete Control for Professional Quality
Black & White.  Something worth buying:

http://www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro/usa/entry.php
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Kory Gunnasen
Digital Printing Lab Mana

abiggs

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NIK Silver Efex Pro for BW Printing
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2008, 02:59:27 pm »

I have been trying it over the past few days, and I am loving some of their toning tools. I am now rethinking about re-toning all of my black and white images with it. I have found issues with my past toning process of applying curves on its own layer, and was going to go back to fix some of my images as a result. But now this is the easy way out.
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Andy Biggs
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rdonson

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NIK Silver Efex Pro for BW Printing
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2008, 05:56:08 pm »

The U Point reminds me of what Lightroom should evolve to.  Lightroom has TAT but it isn't localized like U Point.  I hope the Lightroom team is paying attention.  

The product looks very nice but I'm not sure that for me its worth $199.95.
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Ron

walter.sk

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NIK Silver Efex Pro for BW Printing
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2008, 07:08:06 pm »

Quote
The U Point reminds me of what Lightroom should evolve to.  Lightroom has TAT but it isn't localized like U Point.  I hope the Lightroom team is paying attention. 

The product looks very nice but I'm not sure that for me its worth $199.95.
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I had been thrilled with conversion to B&W by the Black & White Adjustment Layer in CS3.  I was amazed by the subtle changes you could make, with lots of control over the tonal range.  I would then optimize the image with curves, etc.

This past weekend I saw a demonstration of Nik Silver Efex by somebody from Nik Software, and I had to buy it pronto.  The CS3 B&W adjustment layer's functionality is included but is only a small part of Silver Efex.  It offers so much control and so much variety and the U point technology rocks.

Unfortunately for my wallet, I also saw a demo of Viveza, which solves a number of problems of selected edits in CS3, and it does for color and tone what Silver Efex does for B&W.  I also have been using Noise Ninja, and the demo of Nik Dfine seemed so much more intuitive as well as much more flexible with less effort that I bought them along with Color Efex, which also works with the U point system.

I guess the new monitor gets put off for a while, but when I saw what these plugins are capable of, I had to get them.  Every one of my frustrations with certain issues in CS3 were solved with Nik.  By the way, I do not work for Nik.

If you download trial versions, make sure you get the user's manuals, also available for download.

If you have a relative who is either a full time student or a faculty member, Academic Superstore can save you quite a bundle of dollars.  (I don't work for them, either.)
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