B&W Plugin's: Pro's & Con's

Harlequin565

Harlequin565

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I've been looking at various plugins for B&W conversions, and having a play around in CS3. Has anyone tried more than one of these enough to comment?

Silver Efex Pro: $199 / £125
Very nice & slick looking UI, nice effects that are quick and easy to accomplish compared to CS3's B&W conversion tools. Downsides that I can see include not being able to resize the window which is a minor bugbear, but annoying enough to make me slightly grumpy. Also only works as a B&W converter. Professional Photographer magazine seem to rate this highly.

Alien Skin Exposure 2: $250 / £157
Not quite as slick looking as Silver Efex Pro, but seems to have the edge over B&W film type conversions. Also comes with a colour version too which I haven't looked at in depth, but seems comprehensive.

PowerRetouch B&W Studio: £31
This is the "affordable" version, and I have to say it compares quite favourably. However, it won't create the B&W images as a new layer (you have to duplicate the image then filter it, which is no real biggy) and the UI is something I think Clive Sinclair would be responsible for.

I have all three on trial at the moment, and am leaning towards Exposure2 simply because it does colour images as well, and seems to have better functionality (similar keyboard shortcuts to photoshop which help zooming in and out etc..)

£157 is a lot though. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

-H
 
I find you can get some truly brilliant (and FREE) b/w presets for ACR and lightroom, may be worth checking those routes out first before forking out quite a lot of money.

Also you should be able to find a converter to make lightroom presets into camera raw presets, just incase like me, you only use ACR but still want the lightroom stuff.
 
I found free actions online as well and I would rate them just as good as Alien Skin.

That said how are we not to know if someone has not just ripped them off into a action?
 
Bruce120 said:
That said how are we not to know if someone has not just ripped them off into a action?
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Without getting into the realms of piracy and arguments over software publishers getting paid; I personally wouldn't worry too much about this unless you're really top end pro. Quite frankly, I'd never buy the plug-ins anyway so it's no loss to them from me.
 
We use silver effects pro, it's really good, you can get some lovely tones and make and save your own presets, you can add fairly realistic grain, and tweek midtone contrast, personally I'd be lost without it.
If you do a lot of BW and want a consistant workflow, it'll pay for itself in time saving and quality, yes it's pricy, but then you tend to get what you pay for.
 
I use Photowiz B/W Styler and I love it. It gets my recommendation for best B&W plugin. :thumbs:
 
Mark.A said:
I use Photowiz B/W Styler and I love it. It gets my recommendation for best B&W plugin. :thumbs:
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Downloading trial now! Thanks for the heads up! And thanks everyone else for your replies.

I have a few Lightroom presets, and they're OK for very quick jobs, but if I want to spend time on a B&W conversion, I want a bit more control.

I can spend anywhere up to 2 hours in CS3 trying to get the look I want, and that can get very very time consuming. I do have some actions set to do some things, but often, actions are too generic. I'm aware that these plugins are a form of action, but they have a form of control... Not sure I'm making myself clear here...

So I'll shut up now.

-H
 
Chaz Photos said:
Plug ins only do what you can do yourself as far as I can see its a bit like hitting Auto button why not make your own actions.
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Yes they do what you can do yourself but in a lot less time, it isn't just like pressing the auto button, unless you are just launching the plug-in and going with the default, a lot of the plugins that I have used/use offer a LOT of customisation to the effect.
 
Silver efex pro is a wonderful bit of software. Can't recommend it enough.
 
Thanks for all the replies folks.

For the money, I think I'm leaning towards Photowiz. It seems to do everything all the others do, with the exception of setting the B&W conversion as a new layer. Easily fixed with CTRL+J.

I really can't see how Silver Efex can justify the price hike.

Will post up some conversions later, or maybe even do a mini-guide as I've spent quite a while with each tool.

Cheers!

-H
 
Silver effects is very very good, but as you say it's also bloody expensive for what it is.
When you cpmpare it to Virtual studio or Virtual photographer (which are free) is it really worth a £140?? Would I fork out that out of my own money (rather than the firms) I doubt it if I'm honest.
 
I think with these UI type things your just paying for the UI and a little knowledge you can get for yourself, online via google and some searching/reading. Have a look at http://www.thelightsright.com/view/tlr_tools_menu for some free B/W actions, Glenn Mitchel knows his stuff and its worth a look and play before you part with your pounds. If you dont like those then back to google and find a tut that will help you achieve your goal...spend your pounds on glass.

Steve...:)
 
Jayst84 said:
What do all these things offer that PS doesn't?

Surely converting to b&w is just controlling the different tones, which should be done for each image individually. That can be done in PS, and to a fair extent in Lightroom.
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Theres a lot more to silver effects than just a simple B+W conversion, it offers film presets that mimic things like tri-x or fp4 etc. Theres a grain section for adding pretty realistic grain, it also has what is best described as a "clarity" ajustment which affects the midtone contrast.
Theres a lot of preset looks like Holger/pinhole infra-red and so on, you can add control points to ajust areas directly, it'll add vignetts or burn edges as well as the classic colour filter effects, and do toning.
I personally find the finished "look" is just better, the tonal range seems smoother and it has a more film look, I know it's very subjective, and you could do all of that in PS, but I love it and find PS B+W palette clunky, limited and rough compared to SE.
Download the trial and give it a go, beware you just might get hooked! :)
 
Initially when I started with CS3, I did wonder why people had plugins for effects that could be replicated with a little time. I even wrote my own actions to do certain repetetive effects.

However, an action is "fire and forget". Hit the button, and it's done. Sure there are a number of adjustment and masked layers when you're finished, but if you have to go back and change them all, it defeats the purpose of the action in the first place.

A lot of my work is B&W, and although the B&W slider is good in CS3, it's not good enough for what I need it for.

An image that needs processing, may need shadows lifting, highlights burning, mid-tone contrast alterations... all sorts of things. So, in CS3, it's not just a desaturate job, it's B&W convert, levels adjust, & curves adjust. All of these adjustments are different for each image.

The plugins kind of "put everything in one place" for the work you'd need to do in a B&W workflow. I'm not saying it's something everyone needs, but it is something I want as I enjoy shooting in B&W.

Also, if I want to apply a standard "effect", such as film grain, or replicating a particular type of film, it's easy and effective with these tools. Of course, there's always "go and buy a film camera", but I feel that that is getting more and more expensive as lab costs increase due to reduced demand for film developing, and then there's the cost of a film camera (a decent one), glass for it, film for it, and a good quality scanner.

As swanseamale said:-
I personally find the finished "look" is just better, the tonal range seems smoother and it has a more film look, I know it's very subjective, and you could do all of that in PS, but I love it and find PS B+W palette clunky, limited and rough compared to SE.
Click to expand...

It is very subjective, and I also have to say that I love it too.

-H
 
swanseamale47 said:
Theres a lot more to silver effects than just a simple B+W conversion, it offers film presets that mimic things like tri-x or fp4 etc. Theres a grain section for adding pretty realistic grain, it also has what is best described as a "clarity" ajustment which affects the midtone contrast.
Theres a lot of preset looks like Holger/pinhole infra-red and so on, you can add control points to ajust areas directly, it'll add vignetts or burn edges as well as the classic colour filter effects, and do toning.
I personally find the finished "look" is just better, the tonal range seems smoother and it has a more film look, I know it's very subjective, and you could do all of that in PS, but I love it and find PS B+W palette clunky, limited and rough compared to SE.
Download the trial and give it a go, beware you just might get hooked! :)
Click to expand...

couldn't have put it better myself.
 
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