Monochrome with Silver Efex Pro

Silver Efex Pro is really good software for creating beautiful black and white conversations. I use it as a plugin for Adobe Lightroom 3 and have been very happy with this set up, it works seamlessly without any problems at all.

After processing to black and white I save the finished image as a TIFF file and it is then automatically re-imported back into the Lightroom catalogue to sit alongside the original.

It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use. Sam Abell

I particularly like the array of tools available, giving the opportunity to be as creative as you wish. There are a number of preset conversions that can act as a starting point, though I prefer to do each conversion singly and take each on its own merit.

Movement in Monochrome

What do Paris Metro, fairgrounds and street dancers have in common? Well, they all offer great photo opportunities for capturing and conveying movement in our images.

In this small selection of monochrome images I have set out to capture this movement; from dancers to trains, people to merry go rounds. With the use of a slow shutter speed, zooming the lens or twisting the camera during exposure I have intentionally allowed creative ‘blur’ to become a major component within each of these monochrome images.

Creative Black and White Photography

Creative Black and White Photography has a dramatic, powerful and timeless quality that sets it apart from the equivalent colour rendition of the same image.

To produce good creative black and white photography requires being able to see and appreciate the subject in terms of tonal quality, shapes and textures whilst paying close attention to composition, contrast and lighting.

In black and white photography the importance of tonal quality should not be under estimated, for example the colours mid red, mid green and mid blue when converted to black and white will pretty much render as mid grey. So if these colours are alongside each other in your composition they will merge together and lose some of their identity in the creative black and white photography print.

Lonely Tree – Re-processed in Silver Efex Pro

The above image was taken near Croggan on the Isle of Mull a while ago, it has previously been shown in colour in one of our blog photo galleries.

I decided to re-visit this image and re-process it as a moody, dramatic monochrome version of the original using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro via a Plugin for Adobe Lightroom 3.

I generally only shoot Raw and normally use Adobe Lightroom 3 for mono conversions and as I have only recently started using the Nik software it is too early to say that I agree with Nik’s statement that it is “the world’s leading Black and White software“.

However, I did find it very intuitive with some nice tools, presets and borders and I am looking forward to using the software some more.

Do any of you use this software? If so, maybe you would like to share your thoughts or provide a link to some of your black and white examples.

Black and White Landscape Photography

Black and white landscape photography offers something special. It has a dramatic, powerful and timeless quality that sets it apart from its equivalent colour rendition.

To produce good black and white landscape photography requires being able to see and appreciate the subject more in terms of shapes, textures and most importantly tonal qualities.

Holy Bible and Red Rose – Still Life

A still life table top image for today, a Holy Bible and a red rose. This image was taken with a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens set at f2.2 using natural light, it has a very shallow depth of field to give it an ephemeral quality.

This Holy Bible still life image was prepared in Adobe Lightroom 3, converted to black and white, split toned to a sepia finish, grain has been added along with a vignette to add impact and impart an air of mystery.

Cool look warm look you choose

Unable to decide this evening whether to post a toned cool look or a toned warm look image of a book with a rose, so though I would published both. Both images.

Both images had exactly the same PS treatment to give a ‘distressed‘ look then the toning was added at the end of the processing.

I would be really interested to hear your thoughts – cool tone or warm tone ?

Iona Abbey Cloister Carvings – Photography

Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona is one of the most important religious centres within Western Europe. It was here that St Columba brought Christianity to Scotland from Ireland in 563 AD and there are approximately 48 kings and clan chiefs buried here from Scotland and many parts of Europe.

This small collection of images show some of the carvings within the Cloisters of Iona Abbey. These carvings were commissioned in 1967 by the Iona Community and were completed in 1997.

There are many carvings throughout the Cloisters in Iona Abbey and they depict various plants, flowers and birds of the Bible, Iona and the British Isles whilst others illustrate the parables of Jesus Christ.

Landscape photography monochrome or colour

Landscape photography sometimes presents us with difficult choices to make. Should a landscape image be monochrome or colour. Clearly there is merit to be had in both renditions of the scene and there are times when certain landscape photography views and compositions seem to shout out one way or the other.

However, with this particular image I am very much undecided. In a way I like both but if I had to choose which I prefer it would be very difficult.

Monochrome – Stunning flowers

Monochrome flowers – Summer is on its way, though its hard to believe after several days of heavy rain here on Mull, so there is plenty to look forward to and can hardly wait to get back to flower photography.

These images below were taken last year in Torosay Gardens. I have done a lot of commercial work over the years at Torosay and revisited some of the images recently to create this small collection of flowers in monochrome.