I was reading a magazine recently when I came across a software product from Nik Software called Silver Efex Pro, and I couldn’t resist giving it a try. Nik produces some amazing plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, but what attracted my attention to Silver Efex was my admiration of Ansel Adams (like any nature photographer) and my own experience shooting black and white film and developing it in a darkroom. As is so common with digital photography these days, the darkroom has moved to the computer. For those so called ‘purists’ that believe you are not a ‘real’ photographer if you do any kind of post-processing with your digital photos, I ask you to please give me a break. How many hours shut in a darkroom do you think Adams or any others spent dodging, burning, masking and formulating developers for both film and print? My answer is a whole lot more than it would take now with the digital darkroom. Anyway, (stepping off my soapbox) here are some of the results I have using Silver Efex. There are some amazing tools and effects that can be achieved with this tool.
