I'm often asked about my workflow and I always give the same answer 'well, that depends on the image' and to a certain degree that is true, I have historically mostly used Photoshop (now CS6) and Bridge as the main components of my imaging. Occasionally (and depending on the image) I would switch to Lightroom 4 as there are some features I particularly favour for some aspects of image control. Darkening skies in Lightroom is so simple and so effective, no gradient tools and masks to deal with. So for this reason I would mostly use Lightroom for landscapes. Having said that I would often have adjusted Levels & Curves in CS6 before importing into Lightroom. So you see , there is no definitive answer.
Recently however: actually it was at the end of last year when I purchased my Fuji X-100, I started using a Nik Software plugin for CS6 called Silver Efex Pro 2 which was hailed as the 'best black & white converter in the world' ... it was ! I love using it, it's genius and completely intuitive. It's like being in a darkroom again and just like any other image processing plugin , if used subtly it produces outstanding results. Even better, it only cost $199 which seemed to be reasonable enough. Nik also had a collection of other plugins, all similarly priced, for colour effects, sharpening and noise reduction. Shortly after I purchased the software Nik were taken over by Google which seemed like an odd partnership and I couldn't really see where the benefit was to existing customers, that was until to my complete surprise and delight I had an email from Nik (Google) allowing existing customers to download the entire package at no extra cast. With nothing to lose I did exactly that, downloaded, installed into CS6 and I've been playing around with it this afternoon. The result below is a combination of HDR Efex and Colour Efex. I won't go into specific detail of which tools and presets I used as we'd be here all day but now the entire suite is on sale for just $149 ... go on, you know you want it !
mark bader photography
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