What’s your workflow to Nik software? If you own Lightroom and Photoshop, Photoshop “smart objects” are the best way to use Nik apps. “Readable and inspiring”, says Amateur Photographer magazine. My Advanced Digital Black and White Photography is now available. Now it’s free, I can’t see any good reasons why you wouldn’t get it.

I’ve always been a fan of Silver Efex Pro, and only really questioned its price. Google may not have made significant improvements to the Nik desktop apps since they acquired them, but I don’t see any downside here. Yesterday Google announced that they are making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free. This image conveys perfectly the dull, damp, misty conditions of a November morning in the Peak District.Although my starting point is LR, I always launch Silver Efex this way, via Photoshop as Smart Object. The easy way to do this is by selecting the film simulation from the dropdown a second time.īy selecting one of the film simulations and adding a couple more adjustments I was able to create a black and white conversion that I loved. Once I’ve made all my other adjustments, I return the grain to the correct setting. It sometimes creates a false impression, so I prefer to set the “Grain per pixel” to 500 where it’s not distracting.

Now although my approach is to apply the film simulation first, I do find the grain effect distracting whilst I’m editing an image. Its great to see the effect they have and just how it can change the mood of the image. It may sound daft, but I got a big kick out of applying the different simulations to different images. It’s therefore best to select this first, before making other adjustments. As you can see, the effect of the different film simulations can dramatically change the image.

Silver efex pro 2