Nik Silver efex "advanced" tutorial suggestions (and bit of a review)

[myotis]

I'm playing the 30-day trial of Silver Efex and enjoying it more than I expected, but given how sophisticated a program it is, I'm struggling to find any good tutorials.

I'm not struggling to find tutorials that seem to be based on first-time users running through the program, or from people who simply import a file and wang a few sliders around it until "looks good" but I'm trying to get a proper handle on how the different tools work and how you they work together.

Most of the tools have the same names as tools in LR/C1 etc, but I know from experience with LR and C1 that tools with the same name don't necessarily perform the same function. And Silver Efex has unique tools obviously designed around editing B & W.

As an example of a dedicated black and white tool, as well as giving a choice of B&W film emulations, they also show the settings for the six colour channels, the tone curve and the grain settings used for this emulation. You can change these settings from within the film emulation tool and from the main sliders. Are these the same sliders in two different places (one just to change the film emulation settings being applied) or are they doing different things? When should you choose one over the other?

Several controls also have similar names, e.g for adjusting shadows/black, or contrast, but obviously do different things, so the same questions apply.

With time, I can experiment and hopefully find out for myself, but I'm limited by the 30 day trial and trying to speed up the process, and it would be valuable to benefit from the expertise of others.

At the moment, the controls in Silver Efex seem more black and white "aware" than similar tools in LR/C1/PS, and need fewer iterative adjustments between tools than I'm used to making with my current C1/PS black and white workflow. At the moment, the potential for speeding up my processing is making the purchase of Silver Efex a real possibility.

The best example of what I am looking for comes from Robin Whalley (see below), but has anyone got any other suggestions?

Two Amazingly Powerful Nik Silver Efex Pro Tools - Lenscraft

This tutorial explores two of the most powerful controls in Nik Silver Efex Pro, along with a workflow for producing black and white photography.

lenscraft.co.uk

 

[myotis]

I guess I'm on my own here

In addition to the link in my last post, Thomas Fitzgerald has a few useful observations:


https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2025/12/some-quick-tips-for-nik-silver-efex-8

The webinars in the official DXO channel, have some useful videos. But only the older ones seem useful: the ones for Silver Efex 2,

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDQAuHtTc4&list=PLp5lYDsQi4gmttDpXwTa9kh3PGPAN3krp&index=12

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMOcSUP2oqU&list=PLp5lYDsQi4gmttDpXwTa9kh3PGPAN3krp&index=13


There are a couple of others from the same era that also look helpful. I initially only looked at the more recent ones, which all seemed rather superficial.

I'm still making comparisons between Silver Efex and my normal C1/PS approach. It's still noticeable that I can get results much quicker, and with less frustration with Silver Efex than I'm used to. I rather like dark images, and Silver Efex seems particularly good at getting dark, but not "dull", images. It's also incredibly easy to get results that make your eyes hurt.

But It's really nice having an entire program dedicated to processing Black and White, and I'm sure that once I've learned how to use it, it would considerably reduce my time on the computer, and maybe give better results than I currently get. Still not convinced it's worth the money.

 

[ancient_mariner]

I've no idea how much has changed between version 1 (free) that I've used for years and this one.

My version is heavily biased to presets for tweaking to taste, but it's possible to just import and work from the controls. TBH I find it very intuitive, with everything working as would be expected. Control points aren't precise and require much care,but this is obvious too.

I made 5 presets myself based loosely on a couple of theirs, and normally just work with one of them plus adjustments for the image.

 

[Knikki]

I've no idea how much has changed between version 1 (free) that I've used for years and this one.

My version is heavily biased to presets for tweaking to taste, but it's possible to just import and work from the controls. TBH I find it very intuitive, with everything working as would be expected. Control points aren't precise and require much care,but this is obvious too.

I made 5 presets myself based loosely on a couple of theirs, and normally just work with one of them plus adjustments for the image.

I picked up Version 8 simply because I could not get the free version from years ago to run on the OS I have.

To be honest not a huge al=mount has changed, it does pretty much the same as it did before, the interface is nicer, its a bit quicker and I think it now has a little more control over things. It's not the most intuitive software and the presets work OK, it's one of those things you play with get a really nice image and then can't repeat as you for got what you did

 

[myotis]

I've no idea how much has changed between version 1 (free) that I've used for years and this one.

My version is heavily biased to presets for tweaking to taste, but it's possible to just import and work from the controls. TBH I find it very intuitive, with everything working as would be expected. Control points aren't precise and require much care,but this is obvious too.

I made 5 presets myself based loosely on a couple of theirs, and normally just work with one of them plus adjustments for the image.

The presets are certainly up front and a well-promoted selling point, but as they simply provide sets of initial settings, for a full range of adjustment sliders, you can use them and then tweak setting just as you would in any other program.

Alternatively, you can ignore the presets completely and start with a neutral B/W setting just as you would with any other program, but with the bonus of having a few additional sliders that work particularly well with black and white images.

The control points can actually be be very precise. You can adjust what is masked by the control point circle by adjusting chroma and luminance ranges for each control point as well as subtracting specific areas by overlaying additional masks. There are also also additional masks such as gradient masks, AI selection masking and depth masking.

I think it's a great program, and I may well buy a copy if there is a good sale price at some point. But for now, I'm going to stick with C1 and PS, even though I think SE can get excellent results quicker than either of them, and in comparison with PS, producing much smaller files.

 

[myotis]

I picked up Version 8 simply because I could not get the free version from years ago to run on the OS I have.

To be honest not a huge al=mount has changed, it does pretty much the same as it did before, the interface is nicer, its a bit quicker and I think it now has a little more control over things. It's not the most intuitive software and the presets work OK, it's one of those things you play with get a really nice image and then can't repeat as you for got what you did

This may be new in Version 9, but, at the cost of bigger files, you can save all your settings with the TIFF, and they are all re-instated in SE when you reopen the file.

You could also save your own presets as you go along. I tend to use presets (in Capture 1) as temporary things, just to speed up my workflow and then delete them when I'm finished. Or sometimes tidy them up and save them as "proper" presets.

 

[ancient_mariner]

The control points can actually be be very precise. You can adjust what is masked by the control point circle by adjusting chroma and luminance ranges for each control point as well as subtracting specific areas by overlaying additional masks. There are also also additional masks such as gradient masks, AI selection masking and depth masking.

That's a change from the free version.

 

[myotis]

That's a change from the free version.

I think there have been a lot of changes since the free version, especially if you are using it as a plugin for Photoshop.

You can use SE with PS non destructively if you use smart objects, and masks created in PS (which still produces the highest quality masks) can be used in SE. And I "think" that masks you might create in SE.

I've been looking off and on at SE for a while, and although the core features seem unchanged, each release has added features that potentially add to the program's value for specific users. There was a lot of excitement about the improvements made to using SE with PS.