Alternatively, selecting the All option will display every filter available which is much easier to browse, albeit longer.

On the left are the black and white filters which can be shown all at the same time or divided into three preset sections and one custom. The main window is split into three parts. It will already be converted to one of the black and white modes in Silver Efex. After launching, the picture you selected will appear in a separate window within the program. Once the picture is loaded, go to the Filter tab, select Nik software from the bottom and choose Silver Efex Pro from the list. For the purposes of this test, we used Adobe Photoshop CS4. To enable Silver Efex Pro 2, you have to load an image into your editing suite. But if it runs as quickly as other Nik software programs we've downloaded, you should be up and running in less than 10 minutes. We were suffering from a bad broadband connection when we downloaded and installed Silver Efex Pro 2, so we can't give a fair appraisal of download times. Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 costs $199.95 / 199.95 Euros, or $99.95 / 99.95 Euros to upgrade from version one. All these are on top of the existing features found in the original version, which we reviewed back in 2008. Costing around 199 Euro, the main new features of version 2 include an intuitive history browser, structure and fine structure, soft contrast, GPU processing, dynamic brightness, neutral image borders, specially developed algorithms, black and white amplification and selective colour. Silver Efex Pro from Nik software is a dedicated black and white plug-in for use in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture.

Nik collection review