I have never lost my passion for black and white landscapes, but had lost my way a bit with my own images. Since going digital, I have never really got the hang of converting my own shots to black and white. Yes, I got a few good ones over the years, but I never seem to achieve the desired and satisfied results.
Now I have got myself a licence of Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin to Lightroom, I am finally achieving the desired results that I was wishing for and consequently have found my spark back.
I am slowly going through my back catalogue and re-converting some mediocre black and white images with surprisingly good results.
The highlight so fare, without a doubt, has been the above image of Sgorr Dhearg taken from the North end of Glencoe Loch in November 2010. I am not only chuffed with this new version when viewed on the computer, but I am actually over the moon with a large print on Da Vince heavy fiber paper. The framed and mounted print is just superb.
Originally, I made several attempts to convert the below shot of a lonely Scots pine on Muirhouse Muir. These were either flat, lacking depth and contrast or had loss of detail in the Scots pine’s needles. Without any sweat, at the first attempt, I got the desired result using Silver Efex Pro.
So anyone who is into black and white photography, must check out Silver Efex Pro.