Niks Silver Effects Pro & loss of detail.... C&C question too!!

TTWNF

Hi,

I just messed around with a photo on Niks SEP for the first time... i wasn't really sure what i was at to be honest but i am trying to get a feel for Nik's and so far so good i love the whole idea of the control points.

However when i brough this photos back into Lightroom there is a huge amount of the photo which has now lost detail in the shadow areas... how can you check for loss of detail in Nik's?

Also, i like the energy of this photo but after resizing to 800 pixels long side it seems to be less sharp....doe this normally happen? Or is it that i didn't get the focus correct when shooting?



Maybe some C&C would be great so i can learn from doing this one? Thank you!

DaireQuinlan

you've crushed your shadows a bit all right, maybe ease back on the contrast. By far the more egregious of your processing sins however is the very visible haloing around the riders where you have, I guess, tried to bring them up a little WRT the background. There's also a bit too much local contrast adjustment (clarity/unsharp mask/whatever they're calling it now) which makes it a bit eye-hurty.

TTWNF

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

you've crushed your shadows a bit all right, maybe ease back on the contrast. By far the more egregious of your processing sins however is the very visible haloing around the riders where you have, I guess, tried to bring them up a little WRT the background. There's also a bit too much local contrast adjustment (clarity/unsharp mask/whatever they're calling it now) which makes it a bit eye-hurty.

great thank you. i can only really see it now that you have pointed it out. i think i may go back to it at the weekend & maybe start again with fresh eyes. i wanted a high contrast dramatic image so i did f**k about with the sky a good bit. I did loads of other stuff in Nik's but to be honest i'm not really sure what i at :-)

ScumLord

The way there's a light glow around the riders makes it look a bit like the high pass filter in photoshop. If it's doing something similar then it's adding contrast to the photo which is maybe why you're losing black detail. If you've already processed the image adding contrast using levels before applying the effect you're sort of doubling up the contrast.

Reset the levels for the photo before adding the silver effect.

TTWNF

ScumLord wrote: »

The way there's a light glow around the riders makes it look a bit like the high pass filter in photoshop. If it's doing something similar then it's adding contrast to the photo which is maybe why you're losing black detail. If you've already processed the image adding contrast using levels before applying the effect you're sort of doubling up the contrast.

Reset the levels for the photo before adding the silver effect.

yes i must go back & see in Lightroom did i bring up the contrast before i brought it into SEP... definitely in SEP i increased the contrast. I probably should bring the unprocessed raw image into SEP before i do anything in Lightroom?

dirtyghettokid

TTWNF wrote: »

yes i must go back & see in Lightroom did i bring up the contrast before i brought it into SEP... definitely in SEP i increased the contrast. I probably should bring the unprocessed raw image into SEP before i do anything in Lightroom?

i dunno about lightroom, but i use colo(u)r efex pro in aperture. i know that i have to do my aperture adjustments first, before bringing it into CEP. it makes a tiff image from the RAW, and adjustments in aperture after CEP just aren't as good/the same.

ScumLord

TTWNF wrote: »

I probably should bring the unprocessed raw image into SEP before i do anything in Lightroom?

If that's possible you should see much better results. Raw images have much more data in them which you've effectively erased by turning them into jpegs so the effect you're using has less data to work with. I guess it depends on whether the software can handle 16bit images.

TTWNF

ScumLord wrote: »

If that's possible you should see much better results. Raw images have much more data in them which you've effectively erased by turning them into jpegs so the effect you're using has less data to work with. I guess it depends on whether the software can handle 16bit images.

thing is it goes into SEP as a RAW file... Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB and so does SEP which i have set up to handle 16bit images. In theory there shouldn't be any loss of data as it goes in & comes back out as a TIFF

TTWNF

So anyone use Nik's Silver Effects Pro 2 round these here parts?

intolerant

I use Silver Efex 2 and enjoy its possibilities but never really settled on its editing approach (control points etc). I always adjusted the main image points exposure, contrast etc before editing in SE. I have to admit that I generally use SE for adding a tone or wash to the image and not for any sort of real processing!