As you can see from the “before” photograph, the Raw file exhibits the heavy magenta tint characteristic of Raw infrared files, but when moving it into Silver Efex Pro 2 all of the presets show it as a black-and-white photograph. Peter Lekish is a Shutterbug reader who e-mailed asking if I had ever written anything about using Nik Silver Efex Pro to process digital infrared images, so one of the first things I did with this new version was give it a try with some recent IR images shot in the snow while testing Tamron’s 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II lens. What a combination! I used Silver Efex Pro 2’s Full Dynamic (Harsh) preset with some modest slider tweaking and wrapped it up with some Selenium Toning-sepia is overdone, don’t ya think?-to add the final nostalgic touch. There appears to be nearly twice as many presets as before so many that they are collected into thematic groups and provide single-click starting points that can be edited and shared with others.įor some reason working with Silver Efex Pro 2 put me in an unusually nostalgic mood and I remember shooting this photograph of my old and beloved 1953 Packard Clipper with a Leica R9 and DIGITAL-MODUL-R back (sigh). New users may be tempted to just apply the presets and while that’s a great way to get started, it’s tweaking the settings by using the sliders and controls on the right side of the screen that enable you to achieve the kinds of results that you really want.

Experienced users will revel in the new additions but newbies won’t get lost obtaining the maximum advantage from the software. The interface for Silver Efex Pro 2 is both familiar and different. You can even adjust the silver and paper hues with an easy-to-reference color spectrum. Right: The right-hand side of Silver Efex Pro 2’s interface is more powerful than the previous version, allowing you to stylize your images with classic wet darkroom-inspired tints and toners, choosing from “Finishing Adjustments,” such as the obvious sepia and split toning, along with the not-so-obvious selenium, cyanotype, and ambrotype. You can even create and save your own personal presets. Left: The left-hand side of Silver Efex Pro 2’s interface includes lots of new visual presets (more than the previous version) that are now categorized by photographic style and provide great single-click starting points, which can be edited and then shared with others.

Nik collection silver efex pro