3 Tips for Better Black and White Landscapes with the Nik Collection

Here are 3 tips you can use when editing landscape photography with the Nik Collection. These 3 easy-to-use tips explain how to use the controls and adjustments in Nik Silver Efex Pro to add drama and atmosphere to your black-and-white landscapes. Don’t settle for boring, flat landscapes when you can do so much more with the Nik Collection and Silver Efex Pro.
These 3 tips work with all versions of the Nik Collection and Nik Silver Efex Pro.
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[@michaels7889]

Your quiet clear commentary is helpful and admirable, as are the wrinkles in using the software. Your ways differ from mine which expands mine quite a lot.

[@RobinWhalley]

That's great to hear. I'm pleased you like my style and that I can give you new ideas.

Good that you once in a while make these repetition videos! At least at my age I need them! Thank you Robin!

[@RobinWhalley]

More to come! There's another one next week on colour landscapes.

[@mustangshelby2740]

Thanks Robin, your tutorial is very helpful . Image looked great .

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful. Thank you

[@kemerthomson]

These videos are always an inspiration, but this one has me going back to some old color photos to give them a B&W treatment.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. That's great to hear.

[@sgit1]

What a great presentation! Thank you.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're very welcome!

[@JourneyOn2010]

Fascinating. Thank. you!

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you

[@louisevincent997]

great video! thank you for simple and clear explanations

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome! Thank you.

[@MARRRRC0P0L0]

Just brilliant, thank you.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're very welcome!

[@CB-ue1qf]

Really useful video - thanks

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome!

[@stevehallam0850]

Excellent, looking forward to one on colour landscapes with Nik!

[@RobinWhalley]

Coming soon! I hope you like it as much.

[@BigRockNor]

Excellent!

[@RobinWhalley]

Many thanks!

[@jimbean532]

Great info. Thanks!

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful!

[@photonsonpixels]

Just when I thought I had conquered Silver Effex, your tutorial sends me back to reality. Thank you!

[@RobinWhalley]

Even though Silver Efex is easy to use there's always something new to learn. I love it.

[@emmaenpapahenry7733]

Sir, I'm from Belgium and i've learned so much from this video. I am a complete newbie with this software but i want to learn so much from it. Thank you so much. Greetings

[@RobinWhalley]

You are most welcome. I'm pleased that it's helped.

[@vicentecanonserrano886]

Buenísimo. Muy didáctico.

[@RobinWhalley]

Gracias. Hago mi mejor esfuerzo.

[@mtntopviking]

Excellent!! The difference in the photo is amazing. Thank you so much for this tutorial!

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. Don't forget, this isn't a finished image and I used strong adjustments to make them clearer on the video. The tips should work well with most images though.

[@mtntopviking]

@@RobinWhalley Thanks I will remember that.

[@xxxdarius8916]

Thanks Robin, keep up the good work, Silver Efex Pro still the best for creative B+W work 👍

[@RobinWhalley]

Much appreciated!

[@gwine9087]

Great! Cheers.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@robcoates4394]

Excellent video, Robin. My Silver Efex Pro efforts have always been a bit hit and miss - this will brink some method to it in future. Cheers from DownUnder.

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful and thank you.

[@AlexRoe]

The tip on using colour filters before making more detailed adjustments is well worth trying out. I discovered it almost by accident a while ago. Silver Efex is very good for b/w conversions. Great video as ever, Robin! Keep them coming!

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you

[@mackjay1777]

I had a similar experience, after using Silver Efex Pro for a few years,one day I realized there were sliders under the color filters :)....it makes a huge difference. Now I'm going to follow your instructions for control points--something I've never fully understood (like layers, but that's another story).,.,.thanks for these useful videos! :)

[@RobinWhalley]

@@mackjay1777 You're welcome. I hope you find the control point video helpful.

[@ponymoore6140]

That's brilliant, Robin. Thank you. I have Silver Efex Pro 2 But it doesn't have dynamic brightness, or a histogram :(

[@RobinWhalley]

I can't recall when the Dynamic Brightness slider was introduced so it's possible your version predates that. It's also possible that you have that section collapsed; look for a small grey triangle next to the section heading that you can click to expand it. If I remember correctly the histogram shares its space with another tool allowing you to switch from one to the other (I think it's the Loupe). You may have that selected. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I don't have access to older versions of Silver Efex and the interface was completely changed in the last release.

[@ponymoore6140]

@@RobinWhalley Thank you, Robin. Ok, found histogram. But, under Global I have: Brightness; Contrast; Structure; Tonality Protection, Shadows, Highlights. Guess it needs updated. I swear when I bout Nik it said updates would be free - I don't think so!

[@1964ilovebears]

Great video, Robin. Certainly, editing is a matter of taste. For me, the processing of this photo is a bit aggressive and contrasty, with due respect to your vision. Nevertheless, you have shown perfectly what you can achieve following those steps 😉

[@RobinWhalley]

I agree. This wasn't intended to be a video showing how I process an image. It's a video explaining 3 techniques you can use with Nik Silver Efex Pro. I applied all three as a demonstration and I wouldn't expect you to use them all. I also apply strong adjustments in the videos to make the effects more obvious.

[@Notmy00000]

🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you

[@marclabro]

very nice tuto and example image. In sensitivity, i did same than you but with recent NIK tutos, i learnt to investigate real films in this section and it is sometimes gorgeous, more than moving sliders myself. I love sep2 but it remains old and unchanged. we can't boost color saturation (viveza upoint would be helpful), we don't have graduated filter with erase brush for tower, a eraser, luminosity masking, a brush when upoints become too many and time consuming and we cannot finalize with glow, orton, blur,... as we do in luminar... so, more and more i try to find collectionns of presets and profiles for lightroom and use less sep2. another missing feature is that this old product didn't receive the stack feature of color efex pro4 allowing to cascade effects, layers on different zones and combine without photoshop. I hope DXO will wake up one day and mix all NIK plugins in one "color efex pro4 studio software".

[@RobinWhalley]

You seem to be comparing the capabilities of Silver Efex Pro with colour editing which is unfair. If you want to special effects like Orton and soft glow you can achieve that in Color Efex (although the filters may have different names). Nik was never designed to be a complete editing environment, it was always a plugin for the likes of Photoshop which has excellent selection and masking tools. I also don’t think we should criticise something for being old. If it works well the age should be irrelevant. The end result is what matters, although it does need to be easy to use. I will agree that DxO could achieve a lot more with NIk but I don't like the idea of bundling everything into Color Efex.

[@marclabro]

Hi, NIK3 is non destructive in lightroom now but only for one filter. if you use cep4 after sep2 you can only edit cep4 again, not sep2 anymore. either they imagine different sections to be able to come back to previou editing or they replace the B&W filter in cep4 with sep2 and, in cep4, they add one special upoint filter from viveza which is in fact the only thing viveza does that cep4 cannot do because it has stack, curves,... and yes, i use glamour glow, midnight,... but workflow is tedious. Look ON1 PR2020, Topaz studio 2 and Luminar4 and compare with the 6 plugins of NIK. even analog efex outside any context is a nonsense while i love what it does. Today i generate a ton of TIF with NIK just to be able to come back.

[@RobinWhalley]

@@marclabro I think we should take this offline as it doesn't relate to the video.

[@philipzwick]

I have not used NIK for a while and this was an exellent reminder as to how good Silver Efex Pro is in the hands of an expert. Are all these features in the former free version or only in the paid version?

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. And yes, they are in the free version as well.

[@philipzwick]

@@RobinWhalley You stimulated me to use SEP on an image and it worked fine as you showed. Then I adjusted the same image in On1 Raw 2020 using the B&W filter and local adjustments to dodge and burn instead of control points which worked as well. Both images came out ok but I liked the On1 version better. Lots of ways to do post well these days, which is nice.

[@mikearst2940]

@@RobinWhalley Are there any "can't live without 'em" features that are in the latest (non-free) version?