Silver Efex Pro 2 - A Review: Jeremy Warnock Perth Wedding Photographer

The world of digital photography is always trying to replicate what we used to do in a darkroom.  Sometimes it is more successful then others.  In recent years the major players in the digital editing arena have developed very useful plug-in architecture.  This plug-in architecture allows third party vendors to write software that adds features to or just simplifies repetitive tasks in the parent application.  One such company that I am very fond of is NIK software.  Nik have a wide range of plug-ins for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, and one I can not live with out is Silver Efex Pro.  Well Nik just released a new version of Silver Efex Pro last week so here's a quick review.

The sole purpose of Silver Efex Pro is to create stunning black and white images.  Now of course you can do this by hand, but why would you when something Like Silver Efex Pro 2 exists.  Ok, so according to the site the big new features for Silver Efex Pro 2 are:

• Intuitive History Browser
• Structure and Fine Structure
• Soft Contrast
• GPU Processing
• Dynamic Brightness
• Natural Image Boarders
• Specially Developed Algorithms
• Amplify Black and Whites
• Selective Colour.

Some of these features are more exiting them others.  Firstly the history browser is a great idea.  Too often we can over process something and just want to go back 2 or 3 or 8 steps, it is something we can do in Photoshop but is limited in other applications.  I can see this being a power feature.  Structure and Fine Structure can be grouped together with Soft Contrast, Dynamic Brightness, Specially Developed Algorithms and Amplify Black and Whites.  Really all we are talking here is improved processing techniques, which is something that one would expect for a version 2 of any image editing software...no? Similar to that is the GPU Processing that's just filed under better performance, which is great but also an expected addition.  This leaves us with Boarders & Selective colour.  First up boarders are cool, maybe not on every picture - seeing the same thing over and over will just get a little boring, iWeb web pages anyone? But being able to produce a boarder style that enhances the over all effect of your art work is a great feature.  Silver Efex Pro 2 promises to offer natural looking fully customizable boarders.  The last big feature is Selective Colour.  Selective Colour has the potential to be huge for Silver Efex Pro 2.  Using NIK U Point technology allows the user to localize the area they wish to effect leaving the rest of the image untouched by the adjustment.  This type of granular adjustment has been part of Photoshop for a long time, and in recent years it has also become available for Lightroom and Aperture.  So lets jump in and talk about these aspects a bit more.
Upon Launching Silver Efex Pro 2 for the first time the first real difference is in the appearance.  NIK have changed the user interface we where use to with Silver Efex Pro 1, dividing the pre-sets up into more categories making them easier to find. Of course the next thing top note is all the old favorites are still here, film types, colour filters, Stylizing has had a name change to Finishing Types but it's still a familiar look.

Silver Efex Pro 1 interfaceSilver Efex Pro 2 interface

Performance wise I did notice a small improvement while testing an image.  That being said I was only editing a single image, so once you start doing large batches of images all the small improvements would mount up to something worth while.  To test the default processing I opened the same image in version 1 and version 2, I did nothing more just opened and saved.  I do see some small changes in the images.  The image from Silver Efex Pro 1 has more contrast and looks cleaner to me; the whites are whiter and the blacks' blacker.  The Image from Silver Efex Pro 2 while flatter does keep more of the fine detail; I can see more of the skin detail and more fine detail in the hair.  At first look I preferred the look of the version 1 image but as I pay more attention I feel the quality of the tones and detail of the image created in version 2 makes for a better image.

Original image without Silver Efex treatmentSilver Efex Pro version 1Silver Efex Pro version 2

Opening up an image in Silver Efex Pro 2 and making some changes allowed me to test the new history browser.  The history browser is a very welcome addition.  I was able to quickly go back to previous edits and then forward to the current place again, that combined with the Compare button allows you to make a change and compare it with the previous version.  I think many of us will find this a very useful tool.

History BrowserCompare allows you to view the differences your changes make

The new additions to the general process controls, Dynamic Brightness, Amplify Blacks & Whites, Soft Contrast and Fine Structure, are also a welcome feature.  These sliders give us a much more granular control over the image.  What I really liked about these controls was that they made a useful visible difference.  Many times vendors will add controls like these and they make no visible difference or they make such a difference they are unusable.

The new controls give you greater control over your image

The new Fine Detail controls brings structure and detail back into the skin on the models faceNew Soft Contrast increases contrast without loosing detail

The next feature was one I was exited about when I read it in the specification documents, Selective Colour.  I had visions of being able to have localised colour in my black and white images with out a trip to Photoshop.  Well that's kind of true.  Silver Efex Pro 2 uses NIK's U-Point technology which adds a control point.  These controls will apply the correction you are making to the size of the radius, which is adjustable, of that control point.  Sounds confusing and it is a little but when you use it will make sense.  The control points work well for other types of local adjustments, but I had trouble keeping the selective colour setting only to the area I wanted.  I was trying to produce the black and image with model leaving the original lip colour.  Using the control point I had difficulty keeping the adjustment only to the lips, I found the surrounding skin was starting to turn a natural skin tone again.  Perhaps my implementation was poor or maybe this technique is better suited to other subject types.  Which ever the case I feel traditional brushes would make this easier.  I think I will continue to use Photoshop for this kind of work.

Selective Colouring didn't work as well as I had hoped

Finally I looked at the new boarders and finishing options.  The standard finishing options such as burnt edges and vignetting still remain and NIK have also added the boarders.  The way the finishing options are now implemented has changed and has been greatly simplified which is nice.  In version 1 of Silver Efex it wasn't difficult but it was tedious.  The new boarders are nice.  You get 12 to choose from and they range from very clean crisp black and white boarders to more arty boarders similar to those you would get from a Polaroid transfer.

The final image from Silver Efex Pro 2

Over all Silver Efex Pro 2 is a great upgrade or addition if you are not currently using it.  My only complaint is with the cost. At $199USD for a new install or $99USD for an upgrade it is a very expensive plug-in and in the case of Aperture and the new OS X App store it is more expensive then the host software.  The problem is for those of us who use it; it is a very justifiable worthwhile upgrade but would be nice if it was half that price.

Silver Efex Pro 2 is available for Aperture, Lightroom & Photoshop.  You can grab a 15 day trail from Nik's website http://www.niksoftware.com/.

You can see more of my work at Warnock Imagery, you can read about my latest antics onmy blog or friend me on facebook

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