B&W software

[Dirk]

I have a question. I'm a newbie when it comes to film scanning, image processing and related software. Here're my goals:

1) Scan and process images off traditional B&W film, both 135 and 120;
2) Process B&W digital images from my soon-to-be-acquired Canon 6D.

I am confused about the proliferation of software out there. Photoshop? Lightroom? Vuescan? Silver Efex? etc.

My Canon 9000F scanner came with Photoshop Elements 8 and a software called "PhotoStudio 6". I played around with them, but they don't appear to give me a lot of fine tuning options.

I'd like to find the software that gives me the best looking B&W results from film and digital while still being user friendly. Would love to get your input. Thank you in advance.

 

[kxl]

Photoshop is overkill for a lot of people, including myself (although I do have it).

Take a look at Nik software. For $149 for the entire collection, it is a great value. The Silver Efex module that you get with the purchase shuld meet most, if not all of your B&W conversion needs. It is very user friendly, especially if you just want to use its film presets.

http://www.niksoftware.com/nikcollection/usa/intro.html

 

[Dirk]

Thank you, Keith. That's very helpful. I guess longer term the $149 may be a good investment.

 

[Godfrey]

I use two apps for 99.99% of my photography:

- VueScan to drive the scanners :: I've almost never liked the manufacturers' software, and for my two Nikon film scanners, it no longer works on OS X Mountain Lion anyway. I've been using VueScan to drive my scanners for 13 years now, and it's just terrific.

- Lightroom for everything else :: Digital, film scans, whatever. If it's a raw, PSD, TIFF, or JPEG (or now PNG too with LR5), LR deals with it better than anything else I've tried. I do all my B&W rendering from digital or color neg in LR directly ... no plug-ins or such. About the only thing I do outside of LR now, with the finished LR renderings, is add edge effects or other pre-canned image effects with Flare and Snapseed.

Keep it simple. Concentrate on the photographs. 🙂

G

 

[GaryLH]

Adobe as three different photo editing sw programs
- Light Room (totally redesigned - developed from scratch for photographers)
- photo shop (original full - graphic artist, photographers, etc)
- photo shop elements (simplified version of photoshop)

I have a cousin who bought LR for her brothers birthday. He never really adapted to LR, so she got him a copy of pse, which he ended up liking better.

I would say play around w/ pse.. Get to know it before u try anything else. The nik plugin suite is really good. I have it as well.

However, I use Aperture for my main photo editor. It will only work on a Mac platform though. I like it because of the workflow and UI matches the way I like to work. Others are just as happy w/ other products.

Another good product is capture one..

Good luck
Gary

 

[mikemc_photo]

PS is great....and $$$.

PS Elements...is not worth 100.00...vs GIMP which is free

Adobe sells full versions of PS and Lightroom to students and teachers for a great price (199.00)

I use CS5.5 and love it over all others. BUT I started years ago on PS 7...the learning curve is large...but worth it in the end

 

[David_Manning]

Dirk, I think you'll find that Silver Efex Pro 2 for your digital Canon 6D images will mimic your b&w scans very closely. It can be applied simply, like an "auto" preset mode, or can be customized for each individual digital image.

In fact (not to add confusion), you can fine tune your actual b&w film scans too, and I've done that with great results (just remember to NOT add grain).

 

[Beemermark]

You can try the Adobe products for free for 30 days. Just go to their website. I have older versions of LR & PSE but never really learned them.

Digital is like film, if you have the right composition and exposure you don't need expensive software to fix the photo.

Depending on what film (120/35/4x5) I use either Vuescan or the V700 software to scan. I use Picasa for about 99% of everything else. It's free and has all the tools I need in a very simple format. It also does a good job of organizing photos.

 

[j j]

Best and easiest digital B&W conversion is Silver Efex.

Best advice on scanning I have read is from RFF regular Chris Crawford. Chris' advice on processing is based on Photoshop but applies equally well to other programs. http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/scanning.php

For photo processing I find Aperture suits me well; Lightroom and Corel Aftershot seem equally good: they all do the same job.

 

[ramosa]

Lightroom (plus NIK plugins) is all I use. I had PS and Aperture before, but found that PS was overkill and Aperture was less to my liking than Lightroom. Try to Lightroom trial and see what you think.

 

[Dirk]

Thank you all, Gentlemen, for your good advice. I think I'll try LR and Nik first. The 6D should arrive after the holiday. It'll be a steep learning curve for this old film user.

 

[Pioneer]

Don't ignore Phase One's Capture One software. I believe that Capture One Express 6 is available free right now through a promotion being run by Digital Camera Magazine. Order the software from Phase One and when you go through the checkout process you can enter the following code - DCM2013 - and the price changes from $99 to $0. When you run it the first time it will ask you to upgrade to version 7, but just say no and you have version 6 which runs just fine.

I just downloaded it myself so I do not know a lot about it yet but, for the price, it is certainly worth playing with for awhile.

Dan

 

[shimokita]

The 6D should come bundled with DPP ( free Canon software ). It has most tools for quick post processing... why not give it a try and then see which direction you want to spend your money.

Casey

 

[Overkill-F1]

The 6D should come bundled with DPP ( free Canon software ). It has most tools for quick post processing... why not give it a try and then see which direction you want to spend your money.

Casey

DPP is a great piece of software to work with Canon's raw (CR2) files. Once you install it, you can download free upgrades forever. They have really added some nice features over the past few years.
...Terry

 

[Overkill-F1]

Don't ignore Phase One's Capture One software. I believe that Capture One Express 6 is available free right now through a promotion being run by Digital Camera Magazine. Order the software from Phase One and when you go through the checkout process you can enter the following code - DCM2013 - and the price changes from $99 to $0. When you run it the first time it will ask you to upgrade to version 7, but just say no and you have version 6 which runs just fine.

I just downloaded it myself so I do not know a lot about it yet but, for the price, it is certainly worth playing with for awhile.

Dan

Thanks for the tip. I went to Capture One's web site and was unable to find Ver.6, after another search for 'capture one 6 digital camera magazine', I found this:
http://www.phaseone.com/en/Online-Store/DCM-bundle.aspx
Downloaded fine, works great, and I'm happy to have a working copy of Ver.6 instead of a 60 day trial of Ver.7.
...Terry