Nik Silver Effex

[raven4ns]

Hello,
I was hoping to use Silver Effex with my X6 but when I wrote to Nik I got the same reply as someone else who wrote them. Is Silver Effex that good for B&W, I have never used it so I don't know? I really enjoy B&W and I have Topaz B&W but it doesn't give me all the control I would like which is why I was looking at Silver Effex.
Because of Nik's decision to limit the compatibility to Adobe products I was thinking about getting Lightroom. However, I don't like the way Adobe is forcing people to pay monthly to beef up their cashflow stream and I have decided not to support them by buying LR. For me at least, it seems I will have to make do without the Nik software until they decide not to limit it to just Adobe.

[pdxrjt]

Silver EFX is pretty good for B&W although, IMHO, so is Topaz B&W which is compatible with PSP. So, since you don't care for Topaz, you may or may not like NIK. BTW, should your opt for Light Room, you can just purchase the program outright, you do not have to subscribe to get it.

[Kathy_9]

I have Topaz B&W Effects2 and I find that I have tons of control. What I love about Topaz is that they don't charge you for updates. Do you have the latest version? If not you can find it here http://www.topazlabs.com/downloads and if you could use some help with the program's features there are archived webinars here http://blog.topazlabs.com/?s=B%26W&post ... als%2Cpost

[raven4ns]

Thank you very much for your suggestions, I appreciate them. I went to a B&W presentation last week and the chap used Silver Effex 2 and one of the features I liked was the ability to work on a specific part of a picture without touching the whole image. I realize masks will allow you to do the same thing but this was so simple and easy.
Everything I have read about SE 2 from users is very complimentary. The main reason I want a good B&W plugin is to put a selenium tone on my images that will allow me to adjust the intensity of the duotone. This can be done in a number of ways I realize but when I was using CS2 I did this through curves and/or levels which was convenient as well as very precise. I downloaded the free trial of Lightroom as well as PSE but I much prefer PSP X6 so I deleted both of them.
Corel seems to go out of it's way to keep it's customers at arms length by charging for everything they can. Wasn't there 1 edition of PSP that had Nik effects as a bonus when you bought it? Perhaps there isn't enough people doing B&W for Corel to bother with updating the ability to use Nik products.Thanks again for your suggestions, they are more than welcome.

Tim

[Kathy_9]

Have you tried the scripts? http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=51492

And yes, PSP X4 Ultimate came with Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0.

[raven4ns]

Hi Kathy,
No I haven't, mainly because my computer skills are very, very basic and I'm not being modest. I was just about to check to see if the Nik program is a stand alone, which if it is then no problem. It will be a minor nuisance transferring it back and forth to PSP but I can live with that. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and kindness in helping me with this problem.

[pdxrjt]

I don't believe the NIK plug ins are stand alones.... pretty sure of that. There are local adjustments in Topaz B&W..... it is (I think) the third section down on the right. IMHO it is a little more flexible than the local adjustments in NIK as those are always based on circles.... while the local adjustments in Topaz are applied by a brush. Both sets of plug ins have advantages.... but you may want to look at Topaz again.

[raven4ns]

Thank you pdxrjt for your information and suggestion. I was re-reading comments from some users of SE 2 which has given me pause for thought. Rather than spend more money on additional plugins perhaps I should give Topaz another go. Is anyone aware of a video or tutorial on duotones? When adding a selenium tone I took CS2's duotone and then adjusted it to my preferences to get the look I wanted. Essentially, what I would like to do is take one of Topaz's selenium presets and then adjust it to the look I want. Can anyone suggest how that could be accomplished? Thank you again, pdxrjt, for your suggestions.

Tim

[pdxrjt]

In the "Finishing Touches" section of Topaz B&W there is the opportunity to use up to 4 different tones. A starting point would probably be to try a duotone preset....then take a look at the settings in finishing touches to see how they achieved it. The Topaz website has support...... open the website, go to support, click tutorials then select B&W in the drop down box. There are a couple introducing how to use the plug in and another lengthy one on Quad Toning.

[Kathy_9]

Tim - take a look through the link I posted earlier. You may find the tutorials helpful in learning how to get the most out of Topaz B&W.

Here's the link again http://blog.topazlabs.com/?s=B%26W&post ... als%2Cpost

On the lower right hand side of the below image is the quad tone that pdxrjt mentioned. It's under the Finishing Touches section.

Click for larger view