Silver Efex Pro - the art of black and white

If you want to creative beautiful black and white images, without Photoshop layers, channels etc etc, then this plugin is a must have from DxO.

The plug-in comes as part of a suite of plug-ins  The Nik Collection. You can download a trail version from their site which will give you an idea of what this baby can do, along with the other plug-ins.

I have been using this plug-in pretty much since its first incarnation when it was originally developed by Nik Software (originally Nik Multimedia). It was then acquired by Google, who didn't really provide any further development of the plugin.Then around 2017 DxO announced the acquisition of the Nik Collection assets from Google and began to further develop the software.

I tried a trail version and was instantly won over. No more adjustment layers, dodging and burning this is the real deal. A number of effects can be applied and adjusted all on the fly. There are also a number old school film effects. The major selling point has to be the U-Point technology. This utility allows you to make adjustments on the image without creating any layers

The examples below show the first image as a conversion with the Black and White mode in Photoshop and the second image is through Nik Silver Efex. This illustrates the flexibility of what the plugin-in can offer. It has been my go to for black and white photography for over 10 years and long may it lasts...