*** From the Archives ***

This article is from September 23, 2003, and is no longer current.

Bit by Bit: Adding New Plug-ins to the Photoshop Kit

1

Over the years I have developed a methodology for working with Photoshop images. I have color correction under control. I have cast removal pretty well in hand. I have sharpening honed to a razor’s edge. I have the duotone function mastered.

I am fluid with Photoshop’s tools, as much as anyone would be who uses a program every day to make images look better. But, once in a while I am intrigued by an addition to the Photoshop toolset, and I add a plug-in or two. For example, I earlier wrote glowing praise for the Applied Science Fiction (now Kodak) plug-ins that reduce grain and restore color in old and faded photos.

The latest additions to my Photoshop tools are a set of plug-ins from Nik Multimedia, Inc., of San Diego, California, and Hamburg, Germany. Nik’s tools include a series of digital camera tools, a sharpening plug-in, and a collection of creative and enhancement filters.

Just as there are (probably too many) creative filters in Photoshop — Craquelure, Paint Daubs, etc. — there are a lot more of them in the Nik set. But, just as some people like some filters in Photoshop, yet no one likes them all, the Nik set provides something for everyone. There are filters I would categorize as strictly creative, some I would put in the professional list, and some that are, frankly, hard to categorize.

Making Photos Look Better
Professional photographers have long recognized the benefits of a polarizing filter, which generally reduces diffuse light in the atmosphere, enhancing the saturation of blue skies and improving image definition and contrast. One of the more impressive filters in the Nik set is the Polarization filter, which modifies an image after the fact to look like it was polarized when it was taken. The results are subtle, yet handsome (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Before (left) and after (right) applying Nik’s Polarization filter in Photoshop. The image on the right has more transparency in the foreground water, less glare on the water surface, and a slight improvement in contrast. To be able to accomplish this with a filter in Photoshop is quite helpful to digital photographers.

In the example above, I chose a photo from a recent visit to Yosemite with water in the foreground — the kind of photo that is usually improved by a polarizer. Though not as good as a real polarizing filter used on camera at the spot, the result is nice. The look into the water is improved by the application of the filter. Likewise, the sky is slightly more saturated, and the contrast between the trees and the mountains is improved. I like this Photoshop filter, and will very likely use it often to improve images I’ve taken in bright sunlight.

One of Many
Conversion to black and white, long a controversial issue among Photoshop users, is the purpose of a Nik filter called B/W Conversion, which gives you control over which color in the original to emphasize when making turning it into a monochrome image. Photoshop uses the Luminance value to generate black-and-white images, a process that many argue lacks “soul” and one that certainly does not consider the subject matter of the original image. Nik’s solution is to let you adjust both the luminance and the color channels in one step, so you can choose to favor the reds or the blues, for example (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Nik’s B/W Conversion plug-in gives you control over which color channel to work with when converting, ad that makes for a nicer image.

I have experimented with Nik’s B/W Conversion, and have found it to have the right combination of controls to make a very good black-and-white image from a color original.

Photoshop’s conversion to monochrome (Image> Mode> Grayscale) does a fair job on this image of my friend Barrymore Matthews, but the Nik filter does a significantly better job, emphasizing the midtones better, and making the photo much better for print (see Figure 3). I would opt for the Nik filter for those images where darker skin tones will suffer with the simpler luminance-based conversion to grayscale.

Figure 3: Conversion from color to black and white, using the Grayscale mode in Photoshop, yields an image (left)which is marginally acceptable for print (it will gain ink on press and get darker). The image on the right was converted with the Nik B/W Conversion filter, and its adjustable controls. The result is more flattering, and more reproducible.

Step Back in Time
Of the hard-to-qualify filters in Nik’s batter of plug-ins are the Monday Morning filter, which makes a photo look like I often feel on Monday mornings – a bit fuzzy and subdued (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: It’s kind of arty, but I like the look that the Monday Morning filter yields.

Another filter that really wows me is called Old Photo. With it I was able to make in a matter of minutes a convincing old-style photo of the Merced River from an RGB original, and embellish it with type (Mark Simonson’s Coquette) to create an antique-looking post card (see Figure 5). The look of this image is indeed like that of an old photo, slightly grainy, with a tint of tan and exaggerated contrast. Controls in the Old Photo filter include paper color, contrast, and grain. I found these provided me with intuitive and effective controls for my conversion, and gave me a lot of flexibility in deciding how to make the final image.

Figure 5: After creating a tinted image from a full-color digital original with the Nik Old Photo filter, I constructed this antique-looking postcard image. The result is reminiscent of turn-of-the-20th-century work.

Sharpen Up a Bit
The Sharpener Pro filter set from Nik is similarly effective, with preset sharpening effects designed for printing processes like inkjet and offset. In addition there are controls for manual sharpening that exceed those in Photoshop’s built-in functions for sharpening images. For example, there are sliders for image size and resolution — both important factors in effective sharpening — and for the quality (source) of the original image (APS film to high-end scan). The results seem to be very good, though I have not had a chance yet to print on an offset press any of the photos I have sharpened.

Sometimes the effect of Unsharp Mask in Photoshop is too harsh in specific tonal ranges and with certain pattern areas of an image, and I find myself sharpening masked areas of an image to prevent these effects. Nik Sharpener Pro makes images that appear to be more gently sharpened in the shadows while the sharpening in the midtones and highlights is more prominent. The 32-page manual has tremendous detail about sharpening images and improving images using the filters.

More practice with this tool will reveal more on Nik’s sophisticated sharpening; I plan to put it to use daily in the mean time.

As I do more work in Adobe Photoshop, I will promote these filters to the top of my preferred list when handling many of the images I process. My list of plug-ins has expanded, and I am empowered by the latest additions. I will certainly use the Polarizing Filter, B/W Conversion, and Sharpener Pro. These tools significantly expand my toolset for professional digital photography, and simplify my tasks to get some photos ready to print.

With this new collection I can make old photos look new, new photos look old, grainy photos look smoother, and grainless photos look grainy — tools that can actually help me in my day-to-day Photoshop work.

Brian Lawler founded Tintype Graphic Arts in San Luis Obispo, CA, in 1973. Since 1992, he has worked as a consultant to the graphic arts industry, specializing in prepress and color management subjects. He is an emeritus faculty member in the Graphic Communication Department at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) where, for 22 years, he taught color management to more than 1,500 students.
  • anonymous says:

    These Nik Multimedia filters are too expensive for what you can accomplish in Photoshop anyway without much effort. I can’t afford this OVERPRICED stuff. I wouldn’t want any of these filters anyway.

  • >