Sucessful migration away from silver efex?

[pechelman]

Thanks to the mods for moving this to the apparently appropriate place. My original intent was this for to be a discussion specifically related to using a monocrhom camera and migrating away from secondary software. I can see how this would relate to some other cameras, but without color information, I thought it was unique enough to be placed there, but no worries.

Short update on this topic.

I did some reading about lightroom and dehaze and found that my standalone version actually sort of does support dehaze through a bug of sorts. I tried both of the following 2 options, the first being more of a plug-in and the second being preset based;
https://cutthruthefog.wordpress.com/lightroom-6-dehaze/
http://www.proloststore.com/products/dehaze

I prefer the prolost preset based one just because it's simpler to use and quickly see the effect in the preview window.

Anyway, the dehaze didnt quite have the effect I thought it might, or rather it was more subtle in adding in some midtone contrast i was expecting and much more heavy handed in almost what appeared to be a global decrease in exposure that i was not expecting. It certainly got me closer to SEP2, but still not there. A dehaze of around ~20 seems to be about the most I generally add. For removing actual haze, it works OK.

After tinkering a bit more with SEP2, I'm now fairly convinced that lightroom cannot get there. The "amplify" algorithm for whites and blacks is really the trick here and the missing piece. What's more interesting is that now that I've been playing more with this, and recognizing the differences between the output from each workflow, I can now more quickly pick and choose which method to use to get the results I want.

I think I have my lightroom preset fairly well dialed to replicate the general look as far as tonal range and distribution, contrast, and such, so I think that my results from either workflow still have a reasonably consistent look and feel. Really, that's about ~70% of what I was going for here, so I feel mostly successful here.

I'm not giving up just yet, I'll still keep tinkering, but I think I may have progressed as far as I can at the moment.
My next goal is to get there with the color files from the m240. Feel like I'm getting close there as well.

Will keep this updated as I learn anything more. I encourage others to chime in if theyve gone through a similar learning process, even if, or rather, especially so, if their results\realizations are different from mine 🙂

 

[willie_901]

I doubt LR can get there.

But I would bet money a highly skilled, experienced PS user could.

I'd rather spend my time making photographs with Silver Efex Pro than spending a huge hunk of time learning how to do the same thing with PS. I've never ben able to learn PS.

 

[shawn]

I did some reading about lightroom and dehaze and found that my standalone version actually sort of does support dehaze through a bug of sorts. I tried both of the following 2 options, the first being more of a plug-in and the second being preset based;
https://cutthruthefog.wordpress.com/lightroom-6-dehaze/
http://www.proloststore.com/products/dehaze

Thanks for this. I tried the Dehaze plugin and it works fine on 6.5 on a Mac. Nice to have that tool available.

Here is a sample of Fuji X Pro 2 ACROS jpeg and another with the dehaze slider cranked to 100. Interesting to see how it added drama to the clouds.

DSCF1142

DSCF1142-2

I have Silver Effects but don't use it often. I tend to use DXO filmpack a little more often as it is a bit quicker and can work on RAW files directly.

http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-filmpack


However, now that I have the X Pro 2 I really like the ACROS simulation it directly.

Shawn

 

[Canyongazer]

Shawn, is that Acros with no filter simulation?

I actually prefer the deck, building facade etc in pic #1
Dehaze at 100% looks too crunchy to me.

 

[35photo]

If it's important to stay in LR then you can take a look at the VSCO presets that are not cheap but integrate nicely in LR and are more advanced than other LR Presets I have seen.

100% best presets I've ever used period. Neopan for B&W is awesome tweak it a little bit and your good.. Tones are great, can't recommend VSCO anymore they are my go to color and B&W presets.

 

[shawn]

Yup, straight ACROS with no color filter simulation. Shadow tone was set to "Medium-Hard" which I think is +1 and it was with the 14mm.

Agreed that the second is a little to hard. I was surprised it didn't have more artifacts turned up that high. Somewhere around 40-60 looks a bit better.

Shawn

 

[Zonan]

Shawn,

thanks for the info! Love that flying dog (212) on Flcikr!

Rick

 

[shawn]

Thanks, that one did turn out well. Wish I had the shutter a little faster but the XP2 did a nice job tracking the pooch.

Shawn

 

[pechelman]

On a different note
'Pechelman' I Adore your sweet little Dog photo, Quite a Character !
Just Divine in any Format ... 😀

thanks, helen 🙂
I very much miss film and wish it was just as simple as shooting it again, but the scanning process really ruined the experience for me. Maybe one day when I have access to a darkroom again so I can avoid the semi-sacrilegious experience of digitizing film.

Thanks for this. I tried the Dehaze plugin and it works fine on 6.5 on a Mac. Nice to have that tool available.

Here is a sample of Fuji X Pro 2 ACROS jpeg and another with the dehaze slider cranked to 100. Interesting to see how it added drama to the clouds.

really interesting shawn. thanks for sharing.
The extra details in the clouds was something i generally seem to get in silver efex. I recently tried dehaze on a photo of mine that had waaaay too much detail added to the sky in SEP2, but I didnt get anything close to the results using lightroom. For me, dehaze seems to "amplify" blacks, but a bit more indiscriminately than SEP2's amplify.

here's a comparison between lightroom with a dehaze of 20 with my "just begun work in progress" lightroom preset for a color image to get close to my usual SEP2 workflow. The clouds are the obvious giveaway.