B&W: Lightroom vs Lightroom + Silver Efex Pro

[marc_rochkind]

I've been trying out Silver Efex Pro for B&W processing. I do some initial processing in color in LR (e.g., cropping, color balance, whites/blacks) and then I go into Silver Efex Pro for the rest.

Some advantages of Silver Efex Pro: Lots of presets. More powerful brightness and contrast controls (e.g., Dynamic Brightness, Soft Contrast). Control points.

Disadvantages: A separate TIFF with LR editing baked in. (Silver Efex Pro edits are nondestructive, but they apply only to the TIFF.) Control points much less precise than LR selections in the newest versions. (The brush is greatly improved, and select sky is remarkably good.)

While I appreciate the power of Silver Efex Pro, I'm not sure that whatever it offers can't also be achieved fairly easily in LR, with seamless non-destructive editing.

I'd appreciate any comments about this trade off from those who use the newest LR version along with Silver Efex Pro 3.

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by marc_rochkind
tweaks

[digitaldog]

Did you see this?

The price is right: 

https://www.northlandscapes.com/free-black-and-white-lightroom-presets-for-landscape-photography

Edited February 12, 2023 by digitaldog

[marc_rochkind]

digitaldog: I did see that thread, but it is about a different question. My question is about B&W in LR alone vs LR + Silver Efex Pro. The question in that other thread is about processing in color prior to B&&W conversion vs. conversion right away.

[digitaldog]

Well there are zillions of presets (some free, some not) for B&W conversions, or you can make your own, all within the raw processing engine. 

Frankly, I'd prefer to roll my own but I don't do that much color to B&W conversions. And I'd much prefer to do everything parametrically and using Virtual Copies all inside LR. I suppose you'd have to test your own conversions vs. Efex and weigh the pro's and cons. But for me, I want to do as much with the raw data as humanly possible. And I don't find the tools for conversions (some outlined in the Schewe video I referenced), in the Adobe Camera Raw engine limited. 

I can't imagine how there's more  "powerful brightness and contrast controls (e.g., Dynamic Brightness, Soft Contrast)" than what's in the raw itself. Yes, some controls may be more difficult to deal with in LR itself, but the data isn't any 'better' the DR isn't any greater in Efex. 

[marc_rochkind]

Didn't see the link to the Schewe video.. can you repost it?

[digitaldog]

https://photopxl.com/black-white-conversion-in-lightroom-pxl-print-series/

[paddler4]

Quote

Some advantages of Silver Efex Pro: Lots of presets.

A disadvantage of Silver Efex Pro: Lots of presets.

I almost entirely gave up Nik because I had no idea what I was doing with it. It's for the most part a huge collection of "filters" that aren't described--that is, it's nearly impossible to find out what the ingredients of their recipes are. I had a very small number that I used fairly often (in particular, Color Efex Tonal Contrast), but I found it very frustrating that I didn't know what the filter includes and therefore couldn't plan how to integrate it into the rest of my edits. So, in that particular case, I experimented to figure out how to replicate the filter without Nik (local contrast with a luminosity blend, with saturation added to taste) and stopped using Nik.

It's all a matter of personal preference, but like Dog, I prefer to roll my own. 

Speaking of local contrast: for the limited B&W I do, that's often a key part of the workflow. I use three tools: texture and clarity in Lightroom and Unsharp Mask with a very large radius in Photoshop. I no longer use clarity much because it mixes local contrast with midtone contrast and is a pretty blunt tool. Texture appears to be a pure local contrast adjustment, similar to sharpening but coarser (lower frequency).  Like all tonality adjustments, local contrast increases saturation in RGB space, so when doing color, I often do the USM adjustment with a luminosity blend mode unless I want the boost in saturation. I haven't experimented to see what if any impact this has on B&W, but if the conversion has been done earlier, I suspect not much if any.