PhotoWalkPro

At this year’s Spring Photoshop World, I sat in on a very different instructional block hosted by my buddy Vincent Versace.  This was a special, one-time only class that required the signing of a non-disclosure agreement.  You see, Vincent does a great amount of work with the folks over at Nik Software in the development of several of their products and he convinced them to include this one class group into a new beta program.  That program has evolved over the past few months into the currently released Nik Silver Efex Pro.

The great part of being in on a beta testing program is getting the chance to watch the program grow and evolve over time while adding input to the designers to help get the bugs out as well as shape the future of the program.  The early versions of Silver Efex were pretty clunky with many of the features being less than reliable.  Since that time, it has evolved into the greatest application I have ever seen to render black & white images from digital files.  I’m not talking about converting colors into shades of grey.  No, there are dozens of ways to do that.  I’m talking about making images that have the look of actual black & white film.   This was accomplished by actually profiling b&w films from different manufacturers.  That’s right, all of your favorites are in there; Pan-X, Tri-X, APX, Neopan, Delta, and even P3200 (18 types in all).  Combine the film types with color filters that really act like a filter would with b&w film, and a new control called Structure and you have the makings of some phenomenal b&w images.  Not only that but Nik has incorporated their control point tools to adjust shadows, highlights, and contrast on a local level as well as controls to protect your blacks and whites from clipping.  For all of you Zone System freaks out there (you know who you are) there is even a zoned step wedge that, when moused over, displays the areas of your image that fall into that particular zone.

If all those choices start to get overwhelming, just jump over to the Styles preset panel and choose something to your liking.  You can start with the preset styles and then make changes to suit your images.  If you come up with a combination that you really like, you can save it as your own preset that can be applied to future images.  If you don’t like the built-in styles, try downloading some of the 33 custom styles available on the Nik site.

So here’s the bottom line, if you have been longing to make beautiful black & white images but just haven’t been satisfied with the old Photoshop conversion methods, head on over to Nik and check out Silver Efex Pro with their 15-day trial offer (click here).  But here’s the deal, you had better start saving your spare change because at the end of the 15 days, you will want to plunk down the $199 for the licensed version.  It’s just that good!  And here’s something I just discovered, Silver Efex Pro is available at Amazon.  Their price is $185 for a downloadable version.  They list the CD version as being available sometime in August.  By the way, if you have been paying attention to the blog over the past few months then you have seen some of the images that I have made using Silver Efex Pro.

Make sure you scroll down to see my video tour of Silver Efex Pro

When I was walking the tradeshow floor at Photoshop World last month, I was just amazed at some of the new plug-in applications that are now available for Photoshop.  One that really caught my eye is called Fluid Mask 3 by a company called Vertus.  A friend and I just stood and watched the demo for a good 15 minutes with our jaws hanging as the company rep made selection after impossible selection with an ease and quickness that was just astounding.  Well, now I have a copy and I am going to give it a good run through.  I’m not ready to give it a review yet as I have just started playing with it but already I am impressed with the power of this new tool.  If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the short video on the Vertus site.  I’m sure you will be amazed too.

There was also some software that was being demonstrated, but not on the show floor.  I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of the beta software currently under development by OnOne and Nik.  I can’t talk about the Nik stuff because I am an official beta-tester and had to sign an NDA but I am really excited with what I have seen so far.

Speaking of beta testing, one of the products from OnOne that we saw was called Liquid Resize and it is currently available to download in beta format right here.  It is a slick little piece of software that will let you resize an image, say from 4×6 to 4×5 by throwing out the “unimportant” pixel information and keeping those items that matter.  They call it “Content Aware” resizing but whatever it’s called, it is just about the slickest thing I have seen in some time.

Yesterday I got on a Black and White kick and started processing some old images.  Here are the results (I should have been cutting my grass but rain and a flat lawn tractor tire kept me inside, what a pitty).

I have been using Nikon Capture NX for a little while now so I am familiar with the U-Point technology that is the backbone of the Nik Software Viveza Photoshop plug-in.  Knowing this, I was curious to know if it would really be necessary to purchase Viveza (Nik SOftware developed much of the processing technology used in Capture NX in partnership with Nikon).  After all, if I am already using the technology, would this really benefit me by adding this to my workflow, the answer is a resounding YES!  First of all, unless you are using a Nikon camera you probably would not be purchasing Capture NX since this is the image processing software developed for the Nikon Electronic Format (NEF) raw files.  Nikon has actually begun shipping Capture NX with all of their D3 and D300 cameras instead of making you purchase it seperately (it’s about time). If you are using a Canon, Pentax, or any other digital camera, you will most certainly want to get your hands on this software.

So what makes the Viveza such a necessary tool for your image processing?  It’s all in the U-Points.  The U-Point technology allows you to make unbelievable selections and apply processing to just those selected areas but that isn’t the whole story.  You have to see it in action to really get a feel for what is going on.  So let’s look at how this plug-in filter is used.

Since Viveza plug-in is a filter, you activate it through the Photoshop Filter menu.  If you already have any Nik plug-ins, they will be grouped together at the bottom of the Filter menu.

When the filter interface opens, you will find a clean, simple to navigate workspace.  Across the top are the View selector buttons that let you decide how to display your image while working on it.  You can choose from normal, split screen (which shows you before and after and lets you reposition the split to any area of the image, both vertically and horizontally), and a before and after, side-by-side view.  There is also a Preview checkbox if you don’t want to use the alternate views.  To the right are the tools used to Select, Zoom, Pan, and change the background color (you can choose from light, medium, or dark grey).  The right-hand pane is where you add and manage control points.  At the bottom of the pane is a loupe view that shows an enlarged view of the area under the mouse cursor or the entire image when zoomed in.

To add a control point, simply click on the Add Control Point button and then move your mouse cursor to the area that you would like to work on and click.

Once you have placed the control point, you can now begin adjusting your image with the control sliders.  When you first add a point, you will be presented with the basic sliders that control the radius of the selection, the brightness, contrast, and saturation (these are the default set of sliders which can be changed to the full set in the Settings menu).  The full slider set allows you to also adjust the hue and warmth as well as the red, green, and blue values of your selection .

The radius slider allows you to control how much of the image that you want to select.  The selection is targeted on whatever color value you click on and can be contracted or expanded to cover your area of interest.  To get a better idea of what area is being selected, you can click on the Show/Hide Selection checkbox to see a sort of black and white view of your image.  The white areas represent the area of selection for that particular control point.

If you would like to duplicate your control point settings for another area of the image, simply use the keyboard shortcut CMD+D (I am assuming it would be CTRL+D for the PC) and then drag the duplicated point to the area you would like to control.  This allows you to manage large areas like sky without having to make your selection radius cover the entire image while using the values that you just set for the duplicated point.  Also, if your control point is encroaching on an area that you didn’t want it to effect, no problem.  Just place a new control point on that area and it will deselect it from the previous selection and let you control it seperately.  Each control point protects the information that it is selecting so you can make very precise corrections to your image. Ok, so all the control points are amazing but here is the feature that just takes this to a whole new level and makes this even more appealing than Capture NX.  Once you have all of your control points set you have two choices for applying your changes.

First, you can click OK to apply the filter to the current image.  The default setting actually applies the changes and then places them into your image as a new seperate layer.  You can also have them applied directly to the current layer, but WHY?  The second option is called Brush.

When you click the Brush button, it applies the filter to a new seperate layer and then places a black mask on it.  Now you can grab a brush and paint in the effects that you want to where ever you want them.  This just flat out ROCKS!  Not only that but, since it is a seperate layer, you can also adjust the opacity and blend modes for the new layer.  It is just an unbelievable amount of control that was previously unavailable in Photoshop.  So now here is the final trick that should have you reaching for your credit card.  Viveza is completely compatible with Smart Filters.

From your Filter menu in Photoshop, click on Convert for Smart Filters.  Now go back to the Filter menu and select the Viveza plug-in, make your changes, and apply them.  The Brush option is disabled in the Smart Filter version but that’s alright, just grab a black brush and you can paint out the areas on the white Smart Filter mask that is automatically applied.  Better still, because this is now a Smart Filter, you can double click on the Viveza portion of the layer and bring up the filter dialog with all your control points and re-adjust them at will.  Now how cool is that?

So like any tool in Photoshop, Viveza is not a complete answer to all of your image correction problems but the U-Point technology places some powerful and fast  adjustment features in your hands that will shave huge amounts of time from your processing workflow.  The filter is so well thought out and the interface is so intuitive that you will start reaping the benefits right from the get go.  This software definitely gets the PhotoWalkPro Seal of Approval!

If you would like to try out Viveza, head on over to Nik Software and download the fully functioning filter plug-in for a 15-day trial run.  Or, you can purchase the software for your Mac or PC for $249.95 directly from Nik by clicking here.  $250 might sound a little steep but trust me, once you start processing with it, you won’t know how you worked without it.