If you just want a quick, poor quality BW conversion, PhotoLab’s BW processing would be up to the task. Since BW photography at this point is almost exclusively used for artistic purposes, high quality artistic post-production is what is required in the domain.
Your quick conversion makes exactly my point about PhotoLab BW . There’s no definition or contrast and it just turns the image into a beige smear (colour version looks fine). I understand rooting for the home team, but let’s try and stay realistic and balanced. I.e. keep our eyes open. This is just more PhotoLab fanaticism.
PhotoLab is a wonderful tool for colour RAW conversion and a second-rate tool for BW work. There’s no shame in that.
FilmPack 5 and FilmPack 6 are both great. I have 6 but if I had to live with 5, it wouldn’t bother me at all. Originally I thought I’d get some mileage out of the new Fuji profiles (they are in the new Digital Films section). The Classic Chrome, Pro Neg Hi profiles are quite distinctive. In the end, I still prefer the profiles in FilmPack 5. For Nikon shooters, I highly recommend: Agfa Vista 200; Fuji Pro 400; Fuji Superia 200; Fuji Velvia 50; Leica M-E, M9, M10. Which profiles work best is highly dependent on your camera (manufacturers RAW and colour science is mostly consistent between models, but not always: the Nikon D4 offers completely different and richer colours than the rest of the lineup like Z6, D750, D780, D850, Z50 which are consistent among themselves; the D5 offers greener colours and more difficult to process skin tones than any of the other Nikons).
The colour image above was processed with Agfa Vista 200. Agfa Vista 200 does turn grass a little bit yellow/brown but otherwise does a wonderful job with lifelike skin tones, while intensifying reds and keeping other colours like blue accurate or purple accurate. Here’s a screenshot from PhotoLab 6 with the compare tool turned on, to show what the image looks without processing and with Colour Profile.
To take best advantage of FilmPack, photographers should build a portfolio of three or four different images, typical of your photography style. Then go through all of the FilmPack Renderings with those images and try all of the film Renderings, building a short list of the Renderings which matter most to you. With that list in hand, build a preset for each Rendering which does the basics of lens correction, straightening and cropping.
Put those presets in a single folder. Then when approaching an image set, you can try the different profiles quickly without having to switch between Color Rendering Category and then Rendering, while looking at dozens of options which are irrelevant to your work.
Advanced tip: don’t forget to experiment with the intensity slider with film profiles. Many of my preferred profiles intensify contrast and richen reds. How much any given image requires is a matter of seasoning. That said, the 100 default is the right amount or very close about half the time. The image above is at 141 intensity.
I get the impression you tend to work with pre-baked profiles rather than working on individual images.
For the most part, I only ever use Fuji Acros 100 and then tune the image to suit the film - just as I would when darkroom printing.
Then there’s the fact that I cannot tune RAW adjustments in B&W using SFX, because it only works on RGB files. The majority of my adjustments tend to be RAW.
Nope. All of these images would look a lot better processed in Silver Efex.
Here’s the shipwreck processed in Silver Efex Pro 2 in with one of my Favorites (this one based on Natural) with no local retouching or any changes to any sliders (it’s my bare preset).
While technically, there’s more information in the FilmPack/PhotoLab version, there’s no bite. It all looks medium grey. For production, with the Silver Efex version, I’d spend some time making the contrast somewhat more subtle. The trick would be to do so, while keeping the visual bite.
Your impression is wrong. While you have some helpful tips for beginners and know the mechanics of PhotoLab well (your tips on how to manage paths for saving images in PhotoLab helped me enormously), we deeply disagree about both aesthetics and process.
What I’ve shared above is just how to work with Colour Profiles along with some tips on managing presets effectively to improve workflow, only a tiny part of image processing. To talk about local adjustments, sharpening, effective cropping, proportion, Smart Tools (mostly don’t use them) and noise reduction in a thread about Nik/FilmPack would be both overwhelming and off-topic.
I cannot tune RAW adjustments in B&W using SFX, because it only works on RGB files. The majority of my adjustments tend to be RAW.
When creating a black and white image, there’s absolutely no point in having the RAW available. A clean negative should be delivered to the black and white conversion software. I’ve explained either above or elsewhere how to do so. The work in PhotoLab preparing the image for Silver Efex Pro is at least as important as the work in Silver Efex Pro.
The colour negative should be relatively modest contrast to allow the artist/photographer full control over the black and white conversion in Silver Efex Pro.
This is valuable information that I have copied.
Thank you very much.
Interesting that you write it with the Nikon D4, - I’ve read others have noticed that too. At the time I bought the Nikon D3X, but I should have bought the D4 instead for exactly what you mention here about the colors.
D3x was terrible for getting dust - never buy it, despite cheap used - they couldn’t even clean it here at the central Nikon repair place in DK, but had to send it to Sweden.
And I know how to change lenses to avoid that, but the D3x was almost a magnet for dust.
Has approx. 10 cameras because I used to shoot weddings and I’m a big fan of primes so I had 4 cameras in my bag with different focal lengths primes + infrared camera and it was actually quite successful and eventually I was " almost" as fast as with a zoom.
Almost
Left from Nikon, I have the D7100 because I use it with the fisheye 10.5, which I also used for individual photos for events + Nikon Z6 II + countless lenses.
Considering Hasselblad x2D or Leica - either Q2 or the soon-to-be Q3, but as someone wrote to me on this thread (although he meant software):
Be happy with what you have
I really like your color photos as well as your black and white ones you showed earlier, and now I’m really wanting that FilmPack 6 again after your post here - shame on you
Left from Nikon, I have the D7100 because I use it with the fisheye 10.5, which I also used for individual photos for events + Nikon Z6 II + countless lenses.
Nikon Z6 is one of the best cameras ever created (Canon 5D III was another great for its time, as was Nikon D700). Compact, powerful, wonderful video with gentle highlight rolloff. AF-S focus is perfect, as is zoom in to focus. Only real weakness is AF-C focus.
Considering Hasselblad x2D or Leica - either Q2 or the soon-to-be Q3, but as someone wrote to me on this thread (although he meant software): Be happy with what you have
Good advice. Neither Hasselbad nor Leica focus is any better than Z6 focus, and Z6 can mount all of those manual Leica lenses. Perhaps you don’t need a new camera at all. I love the Leica look and am able to get it with my Z6 and PhotoLab.
I really like your color photos as well as your black and white ones you showed earlier, and now I’m really wanting that FilmPack 6 again after your post here - shame on you.
The important upgrade is to PhotoLab 6, whose repair tools are much faster and more accurate than the repair and clone in PhotoLab 5. FilmPack is important (if for nothing else, then the Fine Contrast slider), but whether it’s 5 or 6 is of almost no importance.
You know, the problem is not what SFX can do that PL+FP can’t, it’s more a case of you seem to like “crunchy” high contrast images, whilst I prefer more subtle renderings. I have printed this image to A2 size and shown it at our club, to very approving comments. And print size does matter when trying to get the best out of 45Mpx images.
OK. You want higher contrast? One click on one tool with my original B&W version of the same image in PL…
@Joanna comparing the @uncoy version and yours I have to agree with him (to my surprise). It’s not that he’s got higher contrast, the definition of the grey scale in his interpretation is just clearer, better defined tonal range and comes closer to what I’m used from zone system in film area.
Maybe you’re just more used to your interpretation, but to me greyscale images are not just desaturated colour images. And no matter what your club says, I’m used to a more defined tonality. Anyway, it’s just a matter of taste. If we all had the same, the world would be rather boring.
Having worked as an LF photographer, trained in the UK, I found it interesting to discover that the “French school” tended to go for much higher “soot and whitewash” rendering than what we were used to.
One of the reasons I prefer PL + FP is because I deliberately do not start from a processed colour image. The very first thing I do is to apply a film preset and, only then, work on it as a greyscale image, adjusting tones in the same way as I would work on a scanned B&W negative. IOW, i treat the whole exercise as much as possible in the same way as using B&W negative film. I could not get the same flexibility if I had to start by converting to an RGB format.
The only time I think of colour is when I will apply anything from a yellow to red filter to enhance the sky/cloud definition without resorting to “sharpening” methods.
I will often plan for B&W before I record the image, not when I get to post processing.
Then THIS is the real first thing you do. Pre-visualisation is essential for taking out the color information and replace it with a grey-scale. Currently I get ready for a trip to Wales and Cornwall. I will visit some of the places I cycled through 32 years ago and like to see if I can find some of them again.
What difference does that make? The original poster clearly was annoyed at having an installation of Nik wipe out an older one. Your reply was neither relevant nor helpful. It may have been more appropriate to point out that the user actually has to agree to the fact act the older version will be overwritten, so it’s hard to argue that one didn’t know this was going to happen. However, the fact remains that from a software development point of view, this process is developer-friendly and customer-hostile. This, I believe, is what the original poster wanted to point out, and in my opinion he is right.
Today, DxO survives because they (still) have the best raw converter in the business; others are catching up fast, though, and a smaller company might be well-advised to be more friendly with its customers. Other companies (Luminar, ON1…) constantly gather feedback from their customers and much that goes into the development of their products reflects this. With DxO, I don’t feel that customers’ opinions matter at all. This clearly is a topic for another thread, but I see more and more comments in this forum of people who are asking for features (HEIC and DNG support, for instance) and are shouted down. Once ON1’s or Adobe’s raw conversions are as good as DxO’s (and believe me, it’s only a matter of time), how many people will stick with a company they feel doesn’t care about them?
I, for one, don’t have any illusions about the answer.
the good thing with software is you can re-install them when you want. always keep older copies so if something goes wrong… delete and install fresh with last version that worked good for you.
on a side note, if you can keep many version of your taken pictures… why can’t you save a copy of your software folder in case your computer crashed. better be prepared than sorry.
