Why? Ease of use, non-destructive editing, tremendous flexibility for crafting effects and tonal ranges and most important of all: just great results. Then over a year and a half ago NIK introduced Silver Efex Pro – to my mind, the definitive application for easily creating stunning B&W photographs. While techniques such as conversion to grayscale, conversion to L*a*b*, the Channel Mixer, the Channels to Layers technique and an old faithful plug-in “Convert to Black and White Pro” have been around quite a while, the Grayscale panel in Lightroom/Camera Raw and the B&W Adjustment Layer in Photoshop CS3/CS4 really upped-the-anteas very flexible, non-destructive and powerful B&W conversion tools.

Some approaches are more laborious than others, some provide more flexibility, more control and more reversibility than others, and some just seem to be able to produce better results. There have been lively debates about the best techniques, and doubtless there will be more.

There’s been much discussion of Black and White (B&W) conversion techniques on the Luminous-Landscape Forum and elsewhere – it’s a timeless and favorite topic for many, because B&W remains an important artistic medium.

Silver efex pro lightroom