Nik Software Announces Silver Efex Pro™

Nik Software announced their new Silver Efex Pro photographic plug-in for use with Adobe® Photoshop® and Apple® Aperture™. Silver Efex Pro is an advanced solution which allows users to create black-and-white photographs which closely emulate real world films. It uses advanced imaging algorithms to protect against unwanted artifacts, and emulates 18 black-and-white film types. Silver Efex Pro also features a state-of-the-art grain engine that according to Nik software, "truly mimics the silver halide process and creates the highest quality black-and-white images possible from scanned or digital color photographs." For more information about Silver Efex Pro, and to download a free 15-day fully functional trial version, please visit silverefexpro.

Spotlight on . . . Filter Forge

I am a big fan of the work being done by third party Photoshop plug-in creators and have a sizable collection of plug-ins. Filter Forge is a tool for producing and applying filters and procedural textures, and a whole lot more besides. Filter Forge comes in three versions, a $99 Basic edition provides unlimited access to the filter library but cannot create filters. The $199 Standard edition allows photographers and graphic artists to create their own filters including effects, textures, distortions, patterns, backgrounds and frames. The $299 Professional edition was designed with the needs of 3D-content and game creators in mind, providing support and features useful in architectural visualization, 3D rendering and design and includes support for bitmaps as large as 65,000 x 65,000 pixels, 16 & 32-bit images, and floating point-based file formats such as OpenEXR and PFM. I was extremely impressed by the performance and the range of filters available via the online filter library. Once accessed and downloaded you can transport your filters with relative ease. You have access to well over 2,000 filters and textures. Core features and technology include support for Dual Core CPUs, HDRI Images, 8, 16 & 32-bit image modes, floating point file formats and a really useful smart anti-aliasing feature which uses anti-aliasing only where and when it is needed. The creation of filters is facilitated via a visual node-based editor which is both extremely powerful and quite easy to use once you get your head around the concept. Filters are created visually by connecting components in a flow diagram to combine effects and functions. Available components include Brightness / Contrast, Channels, Gradients, Noise, Color Adjustments, Distortions, Patterns, Curves, Curve Operations, Image Processing Controls and so on. More than just a single effect tool, Filter Forge really has no equal. It is a library of effects and treatments that work as both a Photoshop plug-in and as a standalone application. I found Filter Forge both powerful and easy to use. This is one tool any imageer, artist and photographer should have in their toolbox. Highly recommended. The full Filter Forge review can be found here.