RAW challenge: Can you beat Silver Efex Pro

[carregwen]

Several members have asked about Silver Efex Pro, a Photoshop plugin made by Nik software for BW conversions. In particular you want to know if it's worth the rather hefty price tag.

The intention here is that we put it to the test - you all love tests, don't you?

I have selected a RAW file of mine, and have posted it for download. Your challenge is to see what you can do with it in terms of a BW conversion.

You have two choices. Either...

Download this RAW file (6MB), edit it in your own RAW processor, produce a TIFF/JPEG/PSD, and convert to BW and do any final processing that you might normally do for a BW shot. Post the final JPEG back here. It's a DNG format file, so it should be readable in most packages.

Or...

If you don't want to/can't do the RAW part, download the full size JPEG and convert and process that instead.

Either way, post the result back here in a new post, and give the post a title for the shot. Entries close at midday (GMT) on Friday 17th December. please state what package you used for RAW edit (if you did it) and for the conversion itself. Not too much detail, we just want to compare the end results.

Results will be put to some kind of vote, probably like the monthly comps, or, if there are less than 11 entries, by poll.

Download JPEG file

Download the DNG RAW file

Any questions, post them below.

[JK6065]

I had a quick go at your challenge this evening Rob,

Here is the result:



And here is a quick overview of what I did:

I opened it in ACR (I believe 6.2). Normally I do exposure corrections if necessary but that certainly wasn't the case here :-). So adjusted the contrast a little and proceeded to Photoshop CS5.

There I used curves adjustment layers to get the contrast and balance among the tones looking good to me. After that I raised the saturation of the reds a bit in preparation for the bw conversion.

I applied two BW adjustment layers. One to go with the lighter parts of the bicycle and the wall and one for the middle and darker areas.

After that I used levels and a gradient mask to darken the wall on the top and left.

As a finish I reduced noise with a neat image plugin. And sharpened and raised micro-contrast with USM and that's about it.

What do you think?

[carregwen]

I had a quick go at your challenge this evening Rob,



What do you think?

Pretty near to the best I have done with it. I didn't have any choice of altering the scene when I took this as it was in a museum, and there is quite a range of contrast in the shot. It's a good conversion for just using Photoshop. Well done.

[Camellia]

Camera raw: converted to greyscale, made adjustments to exposure, blacks, brightness and contrast.

From there:curves - strong contrast; fiddled with levels; gradient map; minor dodging and burning; another curves to lighten; unsharp mask.

I think mine is a bit flat.

[hoffstriker]

Well, here's Rufus' best effort. All done in Photoshop Elements 2. He converted it to greyscale, then adjusted something else which led to adjustments for that other thing. I think he did some sharpening, and quite possibly changed the contrast. As for the rest, well that is all Greek to me.

[MiniChris]

I approached this from a bit of a different angle in that I went for an overall picture adjustment using curves channels before doing and B&W conversions. In the channel mixer I used a higher level of blue than I normally do to maintain the details in the shadows. Doing this made me lose a little detail in the bike rack area but since it was far enough outside the primary focus area, I felt the small sacrifice was worth the overall other corrected values. Next, I adjusted the exposure levels and lastly, the contrast range, though admittedly, on the last two very minimal adjusting. I tried it one time with a little flattened grain but I thought the initial image had enough natural grain so I omitted that possibility. I did do some minor dodging and burning hither, thither and yon on the bike rack, and in some of the shadow areas on the front fork.
I have strong blacks and good highlights without having had to sacrifice any gray values and I managed to maintain almost all my shadow detail. Not bad, I'd say. Of course, some of this finery will be lost in having to downsize to fit this format...oh well.

[ScoutR]

RAW processing and greyscale conversion in LR
Levels, dodge, burn, sharpening in Elements

Wendy

[MiniChris]

Did not mention mine was jpeg conversion - no raw capabilities at present. Did add one more component to the mix by adding a layer adjustment - levels to dark at 65% opacity - just to richen up the mix a bit...

[MiniChris]

Realizing, of course the object of this lesson is to show the merits of two programs: Silver Efex and RAW, I find myself frustrated that I cannot do with ease what Rob does, but on the other hand, find that I am semi-crazed with trying...it's late...hahaha and this will be my final offering...
To this one, I revisited the channel mixer and did a little more selective burning. It's off to the crib for me.

[Sahil]

My Contribution..

[pwnage101]

[hoffstriker]

I absolutely love this thread, if just to see how different people view the same photo and how they approach it. We really need to do this more often Rob.....

[arith]

I had a go with Topaz Detail which is a little cheaper:
Opened in ACR resetting everything to zero and then choosing recovery and fill light to get the histogram looking nice, then black 5 and opened.
Cleaned in Topaz DeNoise5
Then Topaz Detail
small detail 0.26
small boost 0.46
medium detail 0.73
medium boost 0
large detail 0.44
large boost 0.24

Colour shifts
Cyan-Red -1
Magenta-Green 0.39
Yellow-Blue -0.61
Protect Shadow 0.17
Protect Highlight 0.18

Deblur (RL deconvolution)
Strength 0.59
Radius 1.01

Saturation -1
boost 0

Then I applid Warming Filter 81 PL no

[MiniChris]

It is rather obvious that each of us perceives color, value and luminosity completely different and for a given set of reaasons. I am an old school photographer who has run the gamut in forcing films and chemicals to go beyond what the manufacturer intended. In digital, a whole new set of "natural" parameters is evolving, very much like Ansel Adams' infamous Zone system. I have been fortunate to study under David Vestal and Al Weber at a number of different workshops where "Zoning" was used extensively, but only as another "tool" in a well learned arsenal of other tools.
To this end, as per my background, as per my tastes and to those things I think I shall always hold dear in a photographic image: detail in both shadow and highlight as well as a solid black point, at least one good bright white point, and a well explored range of gray scale, I am sure I will continue these same values in the digital world. Even saying those words, I went back and looked at all the different edits I performed to try to emulate what I can do using the Zone system as a base for a final print and came to a simple conclusion: I am no more completely satisfied with one method than with another. I can always find a place to continue working the image in any medium; hence this compilation of three of my edits, one not previosuly seen. I am obviously hampered in this challenge in not having RAW capabilities, but even if I had RAW and Silver Efex, I think I would still be challenged to find that one point where I could stop and call it a "finished" print.
In each of the cut sections below, I found that I loved the shadow detail in one, but felt perhaps I gave up too much to the highlight values. In another, while I loved the luminosity I did get in the highlights, the overall gray was too flat. The last one was just to come at the whole thing from a totally different angle by taking the straight jpeg image and reducing it to a very high, little detail threshold value then layering atop this the same original image starting with a 20% opacity, then a 40% and last an 80%. I merged these layers then went into the channel mixer using a 35R-56G-9B in a monochrome setting. Lastly, I adjusted the luminosity with a layer adjustment using a soft light.
I think it is apparent to all this is way too much work to get 1/2 way to where you can get working from RAW in a program like Efex. Anyway, it made for a fun morning.

[carregwen]

I absolutely love this thread, if just to see how different people view the same photo and how they approach it. We really need to do this more often Rob.....

We sure will, man, and as Rufus has been elevated to Moderater I think we can put him in charge of it.

[carregwen]

Camera raw: converted to greyscale, made adjustments to exposure, blacks, brightness and contrast.

From there:curves - strong contrast; fiddled with levels; gradient map; minor dodging and burning; another curves to lighten; unsharp mask.

I think mine is a bit flat.

It is a little flat. The dark tones are good, but you could have raised the light areas more. have a go at version 2 if you like.

[carregwen]

Well, here's Rufus' best effort. All done in Photoshop Elements 2. He converted it to greyscale, then adjusted something else which led to adjustments for that other thing. I think he did some sharpening, and quite possibly changed the contrast. As for the rest, well that is all Greek to me.

Doggone it, Rufus! That's a good one for Elements. It made me pawse for a minute...

[carregwen]

RAW processing and greyscale conversion in LR
Levels, dodge, burn, sharpening in Elements

Wendy

This looks a bit more gritty than the others, which I think suits the bins at the front. Good attempt.

[MiniChris]

Just for kicks and to go for that nitty-gritty look everyone else seems to like, I tried to match Rufus's image. I have to try to find a good marriage between the Rufus way and the Old Toot way. Perhaps this is where working in RAW and Silver Efex will come into play. I like the contrast of the Rufus way but don't like losing the richness of detail in the shadows...so, Rob, how can I do this?

[Steaphany]

Well, you'll need a reference to compare all the others to.

Here is my version, but I choose to exclude it from the competition since I used Silver Efex Pro to create it.

The Image was brought into Photoshop CS3 with Camera RAW by simply selecting the default settings, and processed with Silver Efex Pro using the Film setting of Kodak Tri-X 400TX Pro for a nice grain, I made a slight adjustment to the shadow and highlight protecting the details, and then selected a 65% Red filter to bring out the red of the Bicycle's sign. The image was then flattened, converted to an 8 bit color depth, and saved as a JPG. I did not bother with any curves, levels, and applied no U-Point adjustments, just a quick conversion. Not even 5 minutes and that includes waiting on the computer.



BTW, the link to the hosted file is

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo...02019776yRMmMu

so that you can access the full sized version and zoom in to see the grain detail that has been synthesized by Silver Efex Pro.