Photofocus

0 comments on “Using Silver Efex Pro to Recreate Glass Plate Negative Look”

1. Really great results. The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, locally here in Rochester NY, has many examples of glass plate negatives. Your images really capture the look and feel of that photographic process and period in time. I’ll have to try Nik Silver Efex Pro. Thanks.

2. Very generous of you Scott. I look forward to trying these out. I will definitely be shooting some more images with the effect in mind rather than applying to my existing portfolio.
   If Nik Software miss the trick to sponsor TWIPPHOTO, perhaps they will at least include your original presets on their own download page:

   Thanks again

3. Interesting read, thanks!

4. Thanks Scott for and informative and useful article. I use the Nik plugins as well and really appreciate the results. I will download your presets and try them.

5. Good stuff, Scott. Your endorsement made me spring for Nik Silver Efex Pro – and I have never regretted it. Thanks for the presets!

6. Scott, I know you’ve mentioned that you get “hate mail” and I’ve seen negative comments about you online myself and I just don’t get it. I can honestly say that I learn something from every TWIP item you post and find your commentary the most useful for me (and anyone else) that is interested in making images better either in the camera or the Mac. I know the haters don’t bother you, but I just to let you know that many of us appreciate your help.

7. Roman thanks – there are lots of jealous people out there. I just do my thing. Like Rush Limbaugh – half my audience hates me – but I still get paid :)

   I appreciate that some people enjoy what I do and that I am able to help – and that’s my goal. The haters won’t be happy no matter what I do or don’t do. I don’t do any of this for them. I do it for people like you.

   Now – let’s stay on topic :)

8. On topic: I used to use Alien Skin Exposure 2 for when I wanted to get the black and white film look, but I find myself using Silver Efex Pro about 80% of the time just due to the level of control and, accordingly, creativity that it offers. It’s one of my favorite plug-ins.

   Like another poster above, I bought it based on your recommendation and have enjoyed using it immensely.

9. Conor some of these presets came from that link. Some are my own and some are a combination of their presets and mine that I tweaked to my liking.

   Thanks.

10. I used to spend a lot of time converting color images into Black & White. The process I used in Photoshop involved switching to different modes, selections, adjustment layers, etc. Then I started using Silver Efex and the whole process is done in 1/100 of the time.

    Sometimes i just need a black and white version of the image to use for masking, Silver Exef cuts that process down to seconds.

    It truly has changed the way I work. Now I need to start thinking of it when I am shooting.

    Great images Scott and a nice new way to think of the program.

    Alan

11. Thank you for sharing your presets. Appreciate it.

12. Great comments about a great program. Thanks.
    Tried to load your presets but only received a document??
    Think I doing everything right. Did get the presets from NIK ok. But they are not in the file you said your would go into and they do work.
    Sorry for the confusion. Thanks

13. Hey Scott. Thanks for the presets, its very nice of you to give them away. However I did try to put them on the nik file and your presets want to over right mine. I have presets I made of my own and I don’t want to lose them. Any other way to get your presets installed? I tried import but that doesn’t work…

    Thanks again for everything, we are all better photographers because of what you do.

    JErry

14. I wonder if such a plug-in is available for Photoshop Elements? I haven’t yet taken the plunge into Photoshop CS but I have found Elements to be quite powerful.

    Scott, I saw these photos on your Flickr page a while ago, before the plug-in, and thought I was missing something since they didn’t grab my attention like so much of your work. Now I see what you had in mind and can really see how you could plan in advance, while shooting, for such effects. Nice work.

15. I’ll echo Jerry’s comment/request. I have the Aperture only version of Silver Efex and can’t find a way to add Scott’s presets to my own collection.

    Scott – If you could make the .sep files available I would greatly appreciate it.

    Thanks, Bill

16. Thanks Scott

    Worked a treat! My directory in the Nik Software folder was called SEP. Thanks for this

    Ed

17. I’m using the Aperture Only version of SEP and am not sure how to import the presets.
    If I click Import, it wants something other than a *.QSS file.
    Is there a simple way to import the settings from the file that I just downloaded, or do I need to replace my entire SEP.QSS file with this one… or won’t that work either.

    Thanks much.

18. Thanks so much for giving these away, Scott. Because of what you said here and on the podcast, I decided to get Silver Efex Pro myself and I absolutely love it. Great product and I look forward to trying your presets.

19. Scott,

    I can tell this is an amazing piece of software. I have to ask, though, if you love the look of Ilford Delta 3200 film or wet-plate collodion or Tintype or whatever, why don’t you shoot those mediums instead of making your work a facsimile of what it could be?

    To me, that is insulting to both the work and the process. I completely understand there are different points of view on this topic, and I respect the position of “close enough” when it comes to plugins like this. I don’t understand why someone would spend $200 to recreate something modern belief is inferior; film.

20. Tyler you must not follow my work closely or you’d know I don’t give a flip about process. I’m a professional. I get paid for the final result. No editor or book publisher who’s ever purchased my work cares one bit how I made the image. That’s a discussion for the camera club. I am about results. That’s part one of my response – part two is I hate working with film. I did that for decades and am over it completely. In 2007 I bought a used xPan and decided to try playing with film again – I sold the camera 60 days later. I hated going backwards. Film is not dead but it’s dying and I see no reason to put any effort into using a process which has been proven to be inferior in many ways to digital.

    I have to laugh that you’re “insulted” by my use of a plugin. Be insulted at Darfur or the fact that people are dying in Iraq – but not when it comes to a software program – isn’t that a bit dramatic?

    You want to drag around antique plates in Yosemite – wear a beanie and suffer for your art? Be my guest. More power to you. 99% of my audience isn’t interested in that. Best wishes.

21. Scott,

    I’m not insulted by your use of a software plugin. I could care less how the image is created.

    It’s just a bit disingenuous to display a photograph (or any piece of art really) as something it’s not. That’s all I’m saying.

    You can spend $200 on a plugin to recreate the film look or spend $20 on a camera and $5 on a roll of film and have the actual real look. To me, it makes more sense to have the real thing.

    A facsimile of something is never as good as the real thing.

22. How am I being disingenuous? I clearly stated how I did it. We’ll have to disagree on which looks better. Let’s move on now that you’ve made your point.

23. How about we move on to getting the plugins to work in my version of Silver Efex. All I care about is how much I and others like what they see. I don’t have anybody asking me how I did it other then other photographers. Then when I tell them they say “is there and easier way” I say “its a plugin how easy do you want it. All I want is for them to look good and right now there not looking like Scott’s presets. Heck, I don’t even know what an x-pan or wet plate is but it looks nice an I want to be able recreate that look. When I go to work I don’t get out the hand saw just because thats how I used to do it 25 years ago.

24. They said that manufactured film was cheating, when it came out. The same was said about color film and Polaroid.

    What if you have darkroom allergies, should you risk your life just to say you’re a purist? Chemistry is dangerous, and even more so in uneducated hands.

    I shot both film and digital. I love and hate them both, because of the advantages and disadvantages. I use Silver Efex Pro and Alien Skin’s Exposure because the choices in film are slowly getting smaller. These Plugins allow me to keep using films that have been discontinued. This makes me very happy.

    Thank you Scott for all the great info.

25. Thanks for the presets! I’ve already tried them out on a few images, and I like some of them very much. I usually just leave it neutral, and then run through the bricks and adjust sliders & etc until I like what I see. I know that I often do very similar things. Someday, I’ll make a preset or two.

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