Doing what Silver Efex does in Photoshop or Lightroom....

[DawsonPointers]

<p>Me again, Derick<br>

Out of the camera.</p><div></div>

[DawsonPointers]

<p>Me again:<br>

After a couple of seconds with SEP</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Dang! John, that's damn good and fast.</p>

<p>No halo's and no cheesy HDR look. That's rich!</p>

[indraneel]

<p>Sorry could not resist...</p><div></div>

[indraneel]

<p>and in b/w (CNX + color efex pro)</p><div></div>

[DawsonPointers]

<p>Very nice, Indraneel.</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<p>Yes, you could do some of it in PS. That said, unless you know the spectral sensitivity curves of each film, and the grain in each, you cannot. Playing around in PS or LR can get you close. But if I want you to mimic the look of Ilford FP4, where do you start? Do you know the curve adjustments in each channel that are required to be made to mimic the look? I highly doubt it. As well, in PS, you are simply applying a grain layer....Silver Efex redraws the image with the grain setting. Quite a different approach.</p>

<p>Based upon what I've seen, I've yet to see someone come up with replicating different films in PS. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Based upon what I've seen, I've yet to see someone come up with replicating different films in PS.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Dave, you're more than welcome to try sense you seem very familiar with the "look" of film. Whether film or digital they both end up as tiny little differently colored squares called pixels.</p>

<p>I've already been in plenty of debates and discussions throughout the web on this subject and I can tell you for a fact every one one those claiming they know the look of film and asked to describe it had a different take. But I know why they did and it involves optical tricks involving color constancy screw ups influenced by light source used to scan the film and developer/chemistry anomalies.</p>

<p>It took me a while to nail this hypothesis down participating in quite a few of these types of discussions:</p>

<p>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=50508.40</p>

<p>Of course everyone in that discussion denies they see a difference in the look of the Kodachrome samples posted in that discussion, but I can see with my own eyes there is a difference. So I tend to think it's has more to do with perceptions, personalities and politics.</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<p>Tim, it's not so much the "look" of film....it's the look of THE film. Someone who wants to go into PS and recreate Ilford FP4 with an N+1 development for example, really wouldn't have a clue where to start. What level of grain does the film have? Is it a sharp or soft grain. How does the grain look with the N-1 development? How does the transition between high contrast areas look? How does the grain appear at those transitions? How do the midtones look? What is the exact spectral sensitivity curve of the film?</p>

<p>Unless one has analyzed this film completely, and I mean completely, you cannot just go in to PS and do it. That is mainly my point. I'm not saying that someone can't create beautiful B&W conversions in PS....but I would bet that one cannot recreate a B&W film accurately without an extensive knowledge of the 25 or so films in Silver Efex....and the different processing method of each. In this case, with N-1, N-2, N-3 and and N+1 alone, you'd have to do over 100 rolls of various tests, and know how to do it. Anyone who thinks they can do it accurately in PS is probably blissfully ignorant of the real task at hand!</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>I personnaly try to emulate real film 10 years ago, and came out with a lot of recipe.. and i realize that it was kind of a non sense. What i was after was a good pleasing to my eyes BW whatever the formula or the ISO / process... I like my BW to be on the edgy side, dark, with a lot of grain.. i was a big Polapan user back in the day ; ).. but what i like to do today is to get what i find look good for me.. not what it should look compare to film. Some will say " if you like the look of film, shoot with film" but for many different reason many user (including me) just dont want to re / shoot with film and process them... so for those who are after a particular look of film, i can say that since 2009 or so, Silver Effex have done a good job, and also Alien Skin Exposure in that department.. but talking about BW conversion only, all Silver Effex do can be done with a bit of knowledge in no time also directly with Ps. The U Point things is a good thing when you dont know much about mask and the different tool / blending mode and its a perfect save time thing, im glad they invented it, but fot me its not THE tool that change my life.. like the non destructive workflow in Lithgroom was a good *invention* but i was using layers since Photoshop v3.5.. so for me i was already using a non destructive workflow years ago. In comparaison, the Liquify filter and the healing brush tool where way more a gift of god for me for example.</p>

<p>Silver Effex is a good tool for photographer who know film, and good for newbies that just start in this digital era and want the look of *old* film... and for the hybrid photographer who use to know film and just want a quick way of doing what they want with there digital file + get a spectacular result... If i was new in that department and i heard someone telling me that for 200$ or so i can have amazing BW like i see in mag, i would jump on that filter right now without asking questions.. but im the type of guy who also like to learn a little bit deeper how to do stuff, and i didtn have that chance in the beginning of 1990, so i had to learn the hard way.. i just can toss all that knowledge away now ; )</p>

<p>With time, i have start to learn to appreciate Silver Effex, and for my personnal file i sometime use it, but when im working for client file i still use 2-3 adjusment layer instead so i can go back in time if i ever need to go back in time. I like to start with my BW conversion before my photo retouching (adding / removing stuff) and dodging and burning.</p>

<p>For fun, and old memories, heres a list of number i come out with in 2005... a friend who was really into technical thing armed with is spectrometer and me with the knowledge i have at that time got those number (also some internet research with my 56k modem).. are they perfect? they seem to be pretty close at that time...Today, i simply use the BW tool mode to create my BW, and dont really care about what they look like vs film.</p>

<p>Use them with channel mixer red-green-blue. In monochrome mode.</p>

<p>Agfa 200X: 18,41,41<br>

Agfapan 25: 25,39,36<br>

Agfapan 100: 21,40,39<br>

Agfapan 400: 20,41,39<br>

Ilford Delta 100: 21,42,37<br>

Ilford Delta 400: 22,42,36<br>

Ilford Delta 400 Pro & 3200: 31,36,33<br>

Ilford FP4: 28,41,31<br>

Ilford HP5: 23,37,40<br>

Ilford Pan F: 33,36,31<br>

Ilford SFX: 36,31,33<br>

Ilford XP2 Super: 21,42,37<br>

Kodak Tmax 100: 24,37,39<br>

Kodak Tmax 400: 27,36,37<br>

Kodak Tri-X: 25,35,40<br>

And these basic ones:<br>

Normal Contrast: 43,33,30<br>

High Contrast: 40,34,60<br>

and at last a generic BW: 24,68,8. I like to 50,50,0 or 25,75,0.</p>

<p> </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>You might as well say you can describe the look of a rainbow over a sunset and know the genetic code for breeding unicorns. Just because everyone thinks you can't hit one particular moving target doesn't mean it can't be done. </p>

<p>The real question is what's the point. Knowing tone curves is also a moving target because each differently lighted scene is going to add it's own recipe which will be impossible to separate its affect from the known curves. It's the same thing that happens when you first open a Raw file and the user says to themself..."Something doesn't look right. I want more". Where's the accurate tone curve for that.</p>

<p>Now I've got some unicorns to tend to.</p>

<p> </p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Thumbs up to Tim and Patrick's similar comments on adjusting "to taste", not by recipe (ie, by numbers, or by rote procedures).</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Bryan Waddington wrote:<br /><em>Thank you Patrick for posting those steps for your mono workflow, I have learnt so much from that.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yep, second that -- cheers Patrick!<br /> <br /><br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Derick Miller wrote:<br /><em>I have noticed several references to Silver Efex are answered with a statement that "anything Silver Efex can do can be done in PS."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't have first-hand experience with SEP (it's on my hit list though ;) and certainly wouldn't consider myself a PS guru, so let me quote what one of our fellow photo.netter had to say in his response to the <a href="../digital-darkroom-forum/00XMBE"><em>Confused about plugins and actions</em></a> post...</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Kyle Weems wrote:<br />Many plugins do -not- duplicate the functionality of photoshop, they improve upon it using custom written, purposes specific algorithms. Silver Efex Pro is a good example here, as it does things with black and white that photoshop can not duplicate exactly. Can you get a good result with PS? absolutely. Will it be the same as SEP? no.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>...and to the <em><a href="../digital-darkroom-forum/00WbKc">NIK Complete Collection (5 plug-ins). Anyone familiar? I am interested...</a></em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>As to the person above who said the plugins can't do anything photoshop can't... that simply isn't true. This is an archaic view of plug-ins. No longer are they simply sets of actions like they were years ago.. they use their own custom algorithms to do things photoshop simply isn't as good at. PS is great at a lot of things, but because it does a lot of things, it isn't spectacular at everything.. that's where plugins come into play. Silver Efex Pro for example goes far beyond what photoshop can do.. it's a purpose built product, which will almost always beat out something built for everything. Can you get good results in photoshop alone? absolutely.. but will they be -as good-, nope.. will they be as fast to get? not even close.</p>

</blockquote>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>It would be so helpful if someone posted what Silver Efex Pro can do over what can be done in Photoshop.</p>

<p>This talk of better algorithms and this looks closer to that in either software doesn't enlighten anyone. 100% view crops would very helpful so we can see grain and artifacts that may arise with either approach. And also show the same level view crop of the real film being emulated.</p>

<p>All this talk about being able to see specific characteristics of one film over another and being able to duplicate it in one software compared to another is like talking to the wind.</p>

<p>It's B&W. How hard can it be?</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<p>Tim, can you show me your Neopan 1600 setting with an N-1 development? Please match the acutance, grain, tonality, and spectral sensitivity curve of the film precisely. </p>

<p>Best regards,</p>

<p> </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, can you show me your Neopan 1600 setting with an N-1 development? Please match the acutance, grain, tonality, and spectral sensitivity curve of the film precisely.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Are you looking to use it?</p>

[bryanwaddington]

<p>What is this obsession with processing an image in a few seconds. I appreciate it could be really useful in some situations (wedding and event photography for example) but are you really getting the best out of an image by processing it in 20 seconds (I'm talking monochrome conversions here)? It takes me many times more than 20 seconds to take a good look at an image to figure out how I artisticly want to represent it in monochrome. Also, I may have spent a long time getting the image in the first place, possibly hours or days if you are a landscape photographer, so why is there a rush to process an image in 'seconds'.. it matters not to me if it takes several hours to process an image, and then I'm going to put the print to one side and look at it over a few days to see if I feel anything needs changing.<br>

JMO and the way I work of course.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>Patrick Lavoie wrote:<br /> Today, i simply use the BW tool mode to create my BW, and dont really care about what they look like vs film.</blockquote>

<p>This is a particularly good point to me. Wind the clocks back a few decades and imagine starting monochrome photography and choosing your film. You try a few out and narrow the choice down to a few whose characteristics you like... you have to choose one of them though because that is all that is on offer. Now imagine you are starting digital monochrome photography for the first time and have never used film. You can make a conversion just how you like it. You are not stuck with a particular film's characteristics and the variations you can make are infinate so it really is a bit pointless trying to get something 'exactly' like an old school monochrome film. Get somethings close to, say, FP4, if that is the look you are after, and make some adjustments to suit yourself and save a preset - call it 'MC3' (or random letters and numbers of your choice :) no one will have a 'film' just like yours!</p>

<p>Bryan</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, can you show me your Neopan 1600 setting with an N-1 development? Please match the acutance, grain, tonality, and spectral sensitivity curve of the film precisely.<br /> Best regards,</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't even know what the point is and/or if you've misspelled Tom's name.</p>

<p>I have no interest in reproducing B&W. It's been done to death by folks who do it better than I want to.</p>

<p>You made a claim you think you know the "look" of film when what is really being refered to is the look the process gives to film much like the results from fire kiln baked pigmented glazed pottery. Each piece is going to be slightly different from the next not because of the artist's technique and tightly controlled process but from the uncontrollable chemical reactions to the pigments reacting to the fire and glaze chemistry.</p>

<p>When someone likes the look of film it's based on the assumption that that is the characteristic without knowing if anything got botched upstream in the process right down to the photographer's choice of light. The process has that look, not film.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I was actually making an attempt at reproducing the look of skintone I've seen in movies of the '60's and '70's I liked. I chose Sean Connery's appearance in his James Bond films and suddenly saw how inconsistent he looked finding stills of him on the web.</p>

<p>That's when it dawned on me that how can you name a familiar look of a particular visual medium when the look is constantly changing. See the many versions of Mr. Connery's skin tone...</p>

<p>http://www.grouchoreviews.com/content/films/3246/1.jpg</p>

<p>http://www.filmsite.org/bond/thunderball6.jpg</p>

<p>http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsC/3486-19577.gif</p>

<p>https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-YeO3kuBIyS4/TXZteVx0DMI/AAAAAAAAAGc/ETWJ4BSyUNI/s1600/3428_0002_l.jpg</p>

<p>So much for process controls and predictability.</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<p>No Tim, I didn't misspell Tom's name. You stated that "It's B&W. How hard can it be?" If it's so easy, then show me your method in PS or Lightroom. My point was that if you want to recreate a film's look, it is actually brutally difficult. </p>

<p>I don't claim I know the look of different B&W films....I do know the looks. I've been using many, many different B&W films for about 30 years. I probably run about 300-400 rolls a year just from weddings....so yes, I know what different films look like....and I know that someone who claims it's easy to do in PS is just kidding themselves.</p>

<p>Finally, if you have no interest in reproducing B&W, then why are you posting in a thread discussing B&W conversions? Kind of odd, don't you think?</p>

<p>Jeff, no I'm not looking to use it. Why? Because we'll never see it....because he can't do it.</p>

<p>I never said one can't create beautiful B&W conversions on their own. That wasn't my point. My point was one of the major benefits of Silver Efex in the first place....recreating an accurate film look. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Finally, if you have no interest in reproducing B&W, then why are you posting in a thread discussing B&W conversions? Kind of odd, don't you think?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because I was offering a POV on your previous comment I understood to be film in general not emulated very well in Photoshop. I may have misunderstood what films you were referring to. Regardless of this I still believe my point still applies about anyone knowing the look of any medium but not being able to describe it as pretty much similar to the eight blind men trying to describe an elephant when it could be a bus attached to a hose. Since you can't describe it, how does anyone know you know?</p>

<p>I've seen quite a few B&W prints in my day. I used to make line conversions as a former prepress/production artist from B&W prints for commercial reproduction and I never saw anything that made B&W look different enough between one film brand, process and print paper to be that noticeable to me. I liked the contrast and smooth transitions but that could be from the lighting, exposure and process, not any brand.</p>

<p>You seem to be enamored and familiar with all the subtle varieties of looks from all these brands of B&W film and paper (I'm assuming you're including paper which can add its own look) which I imagine you've looked more closely and at an extended amount of time than most folks. That I can relate to. There are mediums of paint, ink and paper substrates I've worked in that have their own "mojo", but I don't think what you can know or describe about any medium can be reproduced and predictable on a consistent basis even with the most controlled processes. That's not the nature of any organic based medium and/or process.</p>

<p>I do have to agree with on your point it takes a lot of editing to get that look as I see it, but everytime I think I'm convinced I've got that look, someone disagrees that I haven't got it.</p>

<p>I wonder why?</p>

[gooseberry]

<p>Would you guys suspect that SEP or some other plug-ins/filters have been used to create these B&W conversions: a couple of Justin Grant's images -- <a href="../photo/11104600&size=lg"><em>Through the eyes of a coal miner</em></a> (tonemapped?) and his <a href="../photo/8966344&size=lg"><em>self-portrait</em></a> -- and Edmondo Senatore's <a href="../photo/11801214&size=lg"><em>Mr Jazz</em></a>. Saw more examples on PN of those rich and crispy monochromes but can't find them now. I like these renditions a lot so wouldn't mind finding out how to achieve this kind of "look"...</p>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Indraneel Majumdar wrote:<br /><em>Sorry could not resist...</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Had to give it a go too...<br />(by trial and error in PS, so took me way longer :)</p>

<div></div>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Patrick Lavoie wrote:<br /><em>2_then i use a local contrast enhancement with USM, like 20-20 to get this Clarity effect of Lightroom.. more on architecture or landscape images.</em><br>

<strong><em>3_a luminosity mask is add by pressing alt+cmd+3 most of the time.. that take care of a better contrasty look, or white highlight clean up.. excellent for portrait to get a richer skin tone.</em></strong><br>

<em>4_a empty adjusment curve set to softlight and opacity reduce to 30% add more contrast to the file.. a higher opacity will get a stronger contrast.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>@ Patrick: what do you add the luminosity mask to? -- perhaps neither to the local contrast enhancement in point #2 nor to the adjustment curve in softlight blend mode in point #4 as the mask would only reduce their impact rather than provide a better contrasty look you mentioned -- I'm confused... :S</p>

[derick_miller]

<p>What an amazing thread this has turned out to be. I am very grateful to the community members who have contributed to such a rich conversation.</p>

<p>Eric points out that he uses SEP with smart objects in PS. I, too, prefer a smart object workflow (the only downsides being file size and performance). The thing you give up with SEP when using smart objects is the use of the SEP brush in PS, but this isn't a big loss, since you can accomplish the same thing with a layer adjustment using the PS brush tool.</p>

<p>I hoped Patrick would contribute to this thread and he sure did not disappoint. Thank you, Patrick, for your insights and sharing your hard earned knowledge with us. I have always admired your posts and your work. Especially thanks for the workflow description and the before and after examples.</p>

<p>Patrick asked about going back in with smart objects into SEP. You can, indeed, readjust the image. Sadly, they do not preserve the history function from your last session, but all the sliders and such are still in place and, happily, so are the control points.</p>

<p>One really cool thing you can do is blend the SEP smart object layer in with the background layer and if you use luminosity as your blending mode, you can do all the adjustments you want and maintain their effect on a color image. This gives you a lot of what you can accomplish with Viveza (and a number of things you cannot accomplish with Viveza, like more sophisticated adjustments to brightness, structure and contrast, frames, nice vignette and edge burning tools, etc.). What Viveza has is the ability to use the U-point technology to adjust color locally.</p>

<p>Tom made some very interesting points about U-point vs PS selection tools and the limitations of the U-point integration with the more sophisticated selection tools. You can, of course, use both with layers and such, but that does limit some of the convenience (i.e. build in the effect that work quickly with U-point and use other layers for he stuff that doesn't).<br>

<br />I liked John's statement:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>They aren't cheap. But, one must take into account that the creative process does not always have the destination in sight. Going through many arduous steps to achieve a result can limit creativity. You may not quickly abandon a less-than-perfect result if you have invested a long time in getting there.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>As for John's question about using Viveza to achieve what SEP does...SEP has much better control over contrast, structure, etc (click the arrows to open up the options and you will see what I mean, e.g. soft contrast). It also offers a bunch of other tools (grain, vignette, frames, etc., which may or may not appeal).<br>

Tim is right that you can only work on a TIFF file (or jpg, but who would do that ;-) from LR. In PS, you have the option of going from the raw file directly into a smart object (from PS Raw, click on the blue line of text under your image, which says something like "AdobeRBG 16 bit..." and a dialog comes up, where you can select to open as a smart object in PS), which is almost as good as a non-destructive workflow. If you are using SEP with LR, you don't have this option.<br>

Better post, this is getting long...</p>