Nik silver efex pro 2 zone system tutorial

#NIK SILVER EFEX PRO 2 ZONE SYSTEM TUTORIAL FULL#

Currently there is some stunning low key black and white gently powerful landscape photography from the hand of a fine landscape photographer called Paul Gallagher ( ) which I have become very fond of. I was brought up on the work of Ansel Adams, Bill Bandt and Ralph Gibson and although the latter photographer is known for very high contrast images, these are styles I like. If the image is to be made in monochrome then that is to be established and comprehended from the start and then one can engage with the appropriate monochrome approach. This comment will be unpopular but I do suggest that the decision to make a black and white image should be a firm and intended one from the beginning of the photographic process and ideally not some post rationalising that 'if it did not work in colour then maybe it will in black and white' I call this 'image salvaging' but this will engender some controversy I am sure. Good graphic shapes of course can make excellent subjects and a fine building white cumulous sky is hard to resist treating in black and white. I can't deny that I do favour a strong contrast scene when I work with black and white, yet one with some values in the highlight and shadows, so I would always encourage photographers to look at the depth of a shadow and the value of a highlight before making a decision. I am often asked what potential image lends itself to black and white more than colour and what criteria do I use when making a decision as to which medium I should use. In latter years however, I have concentrated on my colour photography, yet would never claim that one is superior over the other, nor would I throw away those precious years in the darkroom where I learned the great fundamentals of photography. I can claim to have spent very many years in the darkroom and the zone system and the whole notion of tonal values have become second nature to me. I am often heard to say that 'the absence of colour distils the image to its essential qualities' which indeed it does. However since the advent of colour photography, many of the black and white aficionados still claim (unjustifiably in my view) that monochrome is indeed more of a creative artistic endeavour. Quite what more 'arty' means I am not so sure.

From now on, adjusting one set of controls adjusts all the grouped control points in unison.Mother Photography's first born were black and white, or perhaps brown is a better way to describe the colour of those pioneering early images made two thirds of the way through the 19th century.ДЇrom then on, and especially from the 1960's, black and white has earned a certain reverence and has come to be seen as more 'arty'.

#NIK SILVER EFEX PRO 2 ZONE SYSTEM TUTORIAL FULL#

So IвЂ™ve created three duplicates and lined them up along the full length of the cliff.ДЄnd hereвЂ™s a useful tip: you can select duplicated control points like this and group them together. This helps confine the effect to just those areas you want to fix and without having them вЂspreadвЂ™ into other areas you want to leave alone. Now itвЂ™s tempting to increase the radius of a control point that doesnвЂ™t cover a large enough area, but I prefer to keep them at their default size and duplicate them, dragging the duplicates into other areas that need adjusting. I started with a single control point at the far left of the cliff, increasing the brightness, contrast and structure values to lift most of the tones out of those danger zones 0 and 1 and give them some definition. And for this IвЂ™m using the modern-day equivalent вЂ“ Silver Efex ProвЂ™s control points. ItвЂ™s clear to me that IвЂ™m not going to be able to find a combination of contrast and brightness values that give the picture the punch it needs without clipping either the highlights or the shadows, so itвЂ™s time to use Ansel AdamвЂ™s other technique вЂ“ dodging and burning. This gets rid of the clipping alert in the sky but makes the dark cliffs darker still. IвЂ™m most worried about the highlights in the sky, because IвЂ™m going to need those shortly, so IвЂ™ve reduced the Brightness value (circled). You can see the dark cliffs in the distance now how more cross-hatch alerts and thereвЂ™s a cross-hatched area in the sky that warns me IвЂ™m starting to lose details in the highlights. To start with, IвЂ™m pushing up the Contrast slider (circled) to give the picture a much-needed boost. I need to do some work on this picture to give it more contrast, though, and this will be my early-warning system to make sure I donвЂ™t lose any important shadow or highlight detail. The contrast is quite low, so IвЂ™m not seeing many zone 0/1 or zone 9/10 areas. So far, thereвЂ™s not much to see on this image. If I click both the zone 9 and zone 10 buttons, IвЂ™ll see cross-hatching where the highlight areas are running out of detail too.

Nik silver efex pro 2 zone system tutorial