DXO / NIK Suite

Today is my last full day in Cannes for this year and tiredness has caught up. Luckily I had a few hours this morning to relax before heading out for the amFar event.

Its quite obvious from the work I post here and to instagram (@edwards_photo) that I love to work in black and white. Although my personal “walk around” fuji at home is set to the ACROS film simulation and I therefore shoot in monochrome, whilst working, I have to shoot colour and so use Silver Efex Pro, part of the NIK collection now owned by DXO to convert copies to Black and White. (My shooting style does not change , colour or mono, my images are still very much driven by light and shade).

Silver Efex Pro is included in a suite of products that also includes Colour EFex Pro and Analog Efex Pro. I originally purchased the suite back in the days when it was still owned by NIK (before the days of it being brought by Google, released for free and treated very poorly). Luckily DXO have now taken it on board and are moving forward.

Although I use Silver EFex all the time, I rarely play with the other applications, despite having them all set up as export/edits in my Lightroom.

In my free time this morning I decided to play with the other tools, looking back over some of the images I have taken on the streets of Cannes this year whilst moving between venues.

Street Life – Converted in Silver EFex

Cafe Life – edited in Analog EFex

Cafe Life – edited in Colour EFex and then Analog EFex

Cafe Life – edited in Analog EFex, adding film effects, dirt, and general adjustments

Combining the tools allows a large number of effects to be added, either subtly or completely over the top.

Filters and the like are scorned on in professional photography circles and of course a severe no-no in the press photography world but it’s always nice to have some creative fun and additional tools in the armoury do not hurt.