Mono Images with Impact

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As a long time user of Nik Color Efex Pro 4 software, which is a plug in filter system for Photoshop and Lightroom, I had a nice surprise in my email inbox when I was offered the full Nik software suite for free, which included the Silver Efex Pro 2 package.  I tested this software last year and it converts colour images from colour to black and white, with several creative effects quickly available. 
Being a traditional photographer who started his career producing black and white images in the darkroom, I like using photoshop in the traditional way by dodging and burning manually.  The Silver Efex package is very good but I couldn't justify spending £160 on the software.  However as I now have it for free I can now produce mono images a lot faster and easier using Silver Efex.

Here are some examples of how I use Silver Efex, the first shot is the converted mono image and the second is the original colour image.






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