Nik Silver efex "advanced" tutorial suggestions

[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.