I’ve published an online gallery of some of my favorite images here: http://gallery.me.com/vettepilot427#gallery

I would very, very much appreciate it if you would check out this gallery and send me some email comments if you have the time. My email address should be listed on the gallery.

All of the B/W images except for one were created using Silver EFX. The Trumpf 09 image was created using the “glow” filter in Color EFX and then converting the image to B/W in Silver EFX using custom settings. I’m particularly proud of this image. It was taken with a Nikon CoolPix P6000.

I agree with RB. I would take my time when reviewing each plug-in, especially Silver EFX and Color EFX as the plug-ins are easy to use, but have a number of options and adjustments. If you work with weddings and do any significant B/W, Silver EFX is a must. Viveza is also necessary, if you want something more powerful than Apple Dodge and Burn.

As far as skin and softening filters go in Color EFX, I can’t comment as I have not used them, but I could see them being useful, especially for weddings and portraiture. I can say that all of Nik’s plug-ins (Color EFX, Silver EFX, Viveza, Ect) use a similar interface, and once you have become familiar with one, it’s very easy and intuitive to learn others.

Viveza and Silver EFX were my first plug-ins and I bought them separately. I was impressed with Nik’s plug-ins in general and then bought the package, still saving money over the individual prices of each plug-in that I didn’t already have. I wanted to use Color EFX to do some wilder things, and I figured that the other plug-ins would be useful (and they have) even if they only saw limited use.

I am sort of confused with your references to first, second, last at this point but…

I would imagine that Viveza may be something useful for all of your shooting. If you do BW then Silver EFX maybe good for all of your shooting as well – if not then probably weddings, Color EFX may have some stuff that would be great for weddings (I mentioned the dynamic skin softener, and maybe more importantly the white neutralizer, it allows you to get clean white while maintaining an overall warm WB)

If you have not done the trials you may want to go that route but be prepared to give each product some real time – maybe one trial at a time.

RB

Here are a couple of my stupid crappy tree shot processed in Silver EFX Pro. They are hosted on Flickr so you can examine them at full size if you want to get an idea of some of the what the product does. None of the shots have any sharpening applied as this would distort things at a local contrast level if you were viewing at 100%.

The first one is typical of what I would have done in a real darkroom for this type of subject matter orange filter TMAX100 processed N, a small amount of edge burn – burn in the grass a bit and lighten up the clouds a hair. Selenium toning.

This one is one of the presets called old glass plate:

This is another preset called Holga:

RB

You forgot to mention about U-points and how they can be used to selectively control filter effects on the image. This may be one of the more powerful features.

Michael,

Silver EFX is a much more in-depth b/w conversion plug-in. It has it’s own presets and presets can be loaded that others have created. It has a structure control that Color EFX does not have as well as profiles for different brands of B/W film. It has multiple toning options for those types of films as well has controls for how much of all of the above. Silver EFX is the most robust B/W conversion tool that I have found for Aperture.

Color EFX is used just like RB describes above, but the U-point technology makes it very powerful in terms of selectively applying the effects of those filters.

Viveza is a powerful plug in that accomplishes most of what I would assume people use PS for. You can select areas of the image using U-points and adjust color and lighting for those selections independently or at the same time across however many control points that you have. I use it to great effect on group photos when I have a few faces that are not the same as far as brightness is concerned. I also use it to selectively bring up certain shadow areas or to increase color saturation in selected points of my image.

To sum up, Silver EFX is a very powerful B/W conversion filter much more so than the filter in Color EFX. Color EFX is used to apply artistic effects and filters globally as RB has shown above (although some selective control is offered using U-Points). Viveza is used to select and adjust specific parts of your image for color and lighting (these groups break down into brightness, contrast, saturation, individual color levels (RGB), Hue, and Warmth.

One other thing – Color EFX has a film simulation filter with a bunch of presets – the presets are way over the top considering K64 and Portra 160NC are far more saturated in the default settings than Velvia ever was. But the engine itself is pretty cool as long as you bump down the saturation quite a bit it is a reasonable starting point for getting a reasonable approximation of the color and tone curve of a particular film type. I can do this myself in one of a number of tools and the only thing worth the money are the ‘accuracy’ of the presets for any given image coming in. I have neither the time or desire at this point to test this accuracy but it is fun to play with.

RB

You are of course correct, Color EFX has a BW conversion filter – it’s fairly generic and has only opacity control points (like the rest of Color EFX). The filter I used on the monochrome image at the top is actually the IR filter that does color and monochrome IR simulation. In addition to a BW conversion filter Color EFX has a paper toner filter as well probably best used in a two pass situation.

Silver EFX has specific film simulations, grain simulations, control points that are much more like viveza for local adjustment of contrast brightness, paper toner types that can be used in one shot. If you do a lot of BW Silver EFX is the one for you.

Color EFX control points as mentioned are opacity only and for how I use most of the filter not really useful. I can imagine how they might be especially with filters like white neutralizer and dynamic skin softener esp for a wedding shooter. Those two alone with opacity control points maybe worth the price of admission to Color EFX.

Hope that answers your question. Bottom line although Color EFX has a BW conversion that offers a couple of fine tuning controls as well as two different rendering methods it in no way compares to Silver EFX if you are serious about your monochrome conversions. Silver EFX is a bunch of film types, developer types, paper toners, and a darkroom in a box.

Hope that answers your queseiton.

RB