Silver Efex Pro 2 Examples

I just upgraded from Silver Efex Pro to Silver Efex pro 2 and I thought I would share a few early and quick examples.

Close up of the entrance to this unusual bird house. Added structure and contrast only in Silver Efex Pro 2 in Lightroom 3.0.

Visit to the vets office with some nice and very life like photos of their pets. Processed with Silver Efex Pro 2 in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Alpacas checking out visitors, note their jackets to protect their valuable wool. Processed with Silver Efex Pro 2 in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Old unoccupied mansion rendered using a antique plate filter in Silver Efex Pro.

Another photo rendered using Silver Efex Pro 2 in Adobe Lightroom 3.0 to add more structure to the clouds.
Early observation of this upgrade include a much faster rendering and saving of images. More preassigned filters including some frames. Updated interface and a history view and much more that I haven't yet explored. I will let you know how I like this new version in a later post.

Rainy Days

It has been rainy all week after having a winters break the previous three weeks. In those three weeks we lost our male German Shepherd Ricki to liver cancer. Then a week ago a opportunity came our way to add a 14 month old male German Shepherd Monty to our family.
Monty flew into our lives from Ohio on Valentines Day at 11:00 PM and of course so did the rain and it has stayed all week long. I do have a few pictures to share from this hectic week all taken with the Leica D-Lux 4. I'm afraid I can't bring myself to drag my M-9 out into the rain. I will hopefully have some M-9 pictures shortly depending on the weather.
The picture above is of Monty enjoying playing with his new toy. He has made the transition to his new home seamlessly.

Here is a fence with interesting yellow growth on it and framed nicely by the green plants and wet roadway. Post processed in Viveza 2 and Color Efex Pro 3.0

Monty and Nika are checking out the horses running in the pasture.

The same picture post processed in Silver Efex Pro and then using Color Efex Pro 3.0 to adjust the color tones to get this interesting effect.

Interesting fence post and contrasted by new green growth and bare fallen tree limbs. Post processed in Adobe Lightroom 3.0.

Tonal Adjustment

Today I'm sharing some pictures taken this week with the Leica D-Lux 4, post processed in Adobe Lightroom 3.0. Then I adjusted the tonal values using the tonal contrast adjustment tool in Color Efex Pro. Using this filter tool allows you to fine tune Highlight Contrast, Midtone Contrast and Shadow Contrast along with saturation.

Tonal contrast used to smooth the sky and highlight the dark shadows.

Even in black and white tonal contrast brings out the subject of the picture.

Tonal contrast adjusted to make the leaf pop.

Tonal contrast used to highlight the subtle color differences.

Tonal contrast brings out the paint loss and rust on this pick-up.

Poplar Beach

Pictures taken at Poplar Beach in Halfmoon Bay California on the first week of February. This week has had some early spring mild weather conditions and warranted a trip to the beach. 60 + degrees and sunshine were the only prodding necessary to get out of the house and enjoy the weather. All photos were taken with a Leica M-9 fitted with a 90mm Elmarit 2.8 lens. Post processing was done using Adobe Lightroom 3.0.

Never to old to enjoy a romp at the beach.

Late afternoon light.

Out for a jog.

Wind blown tree on a cliff over looking the sea.

A sea bird looking out to sea.