Which is better NIK Silver pro or B/W Styler

[mo]

Can anybody share their experiences about the Nik Silver Pro compared to B/W styler. Apart from the price difference, I am interested in functionality and ease of use.


Thanks


Mo

[Donald Miller]

I ran a trial of Silver Pro. I found that it really was of limited benefit in my work flow since I use a rip to control my BW printer.

Of the two I would say that the NIK program is the better.

It would probably do you more good to download the trials and see what you think of the two programs.

[Lenny Eiger]

Can anybody share their experiences about the Nik Silver Pro compared to B/W styler. Apart from the price difference, I am interested in functionality and ease of use.
Thanks
Mo

I spent a lot of money on all sorts of plugins early on. In the end, I learned my photoshop and threw them all out. Look at books, other prints from History, get a sense of how you like to print - and learn how to use the curve dialog.

Remember, all these things don't do anything that Photoshop doesn't already do.

Just my 2cents.

Lenny

[nanuq]

I'm using Nik Silver to process my digital images, and I think it really makes a good job out of the task. The control points especially are a good way to do local adjustments without having to spend hours painting masks. I don't know B/W styler so can't compare, sorry.

[Jim Cole]

I've been using Silver Efex for a few months and it is a very powerful plug-in with a lot of control and the ability to save a lot of your favorite presets.

However, the program runs on RGB files and if your are working with 16-bit RGB files the file sizes are well in excess of 500MB for a 4x5 negative. With files this size or larger Silver Efex freezes when using control points or after a few other steps in various orders. I have been in communication with NIK for two months now. Thay have replicated my issue, but still cannot solve the memory management problems. I have downloaded two different beta versions, both with the same issue.

Everytime it freezes, it requires a restart of CS3.

Good luck,
Jim

[msk2193]

Dakotah, I always use Nik as part of my workflow.
First I use Dfine to remove any noise without affecting sharpness in the detail of the image. I also use Dfine on every scan I have made, color and B&W.

After Dfine, I go into Viveza 2 to make local and global adjustments on a seperate layer. I especially like their "structure" slider as compared to sharpness filters in CS5.

Once the image is where I want it, I open Silver Efex to remove color and adjust specific areas of the photo to fall within a specific zone.