PAD 218 - Clocktower

[Mike Farley]

What proportion of your mono images would you say are processed in SEP?

100%.

SEP2 is quick to use, gives great results and is my go to application for mono. I cannot praise it too highly, especially now that new owner Google has lowered the price and includes it in a bundle of other useful Nik products.

[Mike Farley]

To add to my earlier replies, there is one benefit in starting the SEP2 plugin from Photoshop CS/CC rather than Lightroom. If I duplicate the layer with the image I want to convert to mono, I can change it into a Smart Object so that I can retain the settings I used and either make further adjustments later or just simply see what I did for a particular image. Unfortunately Photoshop Elements does not support Smart Objects, so this is one instance where the full version of PS has a definite advantage. If you like an effect from a particular combination of settings, it is always possible to save it as a custom preset before exiting SEP2.

I also use SEP2 for a lot of my COLOUR work! SEP2 has a very useful set of Structure controls which are very good for bringing out detail and texture. By setting the Blending for the SEP2 layer to Luminosity in the technique described by Simon Clarkson, I only use the brightness values for the converted image and retain the colour. A good example of this approach is with my PAD 62 image which can be seen at this link.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=287&p=1555&hilit=glory#p1555

Viveza, which is now included in the Nik software bundle also has a Structure control, but this consists of just a single slider and does not have the granularity of the enhanced version found in SEP2. Also, when I first started using SEP2 I bought it when it was also available a standalone product and did not possess the full Nik bundle at the time.

Simon's technique is described in this post:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=162&p=1498#p1495

[Mike Farley]

Whilst writing my previous response, I knew that I had recently seen an online article about using SEP2 with colour images, but I could not remember where. I have now found it and it has a lot of useful info. The techniques described do not apply just to SEP2 and can be used with other mono conversion methods.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/tuto ... olour.html

The author, Keith Cooper, has also written this shorter article which is in a similar vein.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/stuff2/?p=1493

For those who do not have SEP2 (why not? it's a great product ) but want to try emulating its Structure function, try pushing the ACR Clarity slider further to the right than normal. Clarity boosts midtone contrast, which is what I believe Structure is also doing, albeit possibly in a more sophisticated manner.

[davidc]

Interesting article but I can't help but feel like they could have used better images for the examples. I think they took dreadful images and made minor improvements, ending up with slightly less dreadful images.