A Better Tool for Black and White? Meet Silver Efex
This mini-workshop is an introduction to Silver Efex—a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom designed particularly for black-and-white photographers. In one hour, Kai McBride will give an overview of this sophisticated program, demonstrate its powerful monochrome-specific controls, and explain how he finds it especially compelling for adding depth and drama to digital captures. Whether you are a veteran of the darkroom looking to emulate film work of the past, or a more recent convert to digital black-and-white photography, Silver Efex is worth a close look.
Silver Efex is part of the Nik Collection 9 photo editing suite. You can download free 30-day trial version for Mac or Windows.
Kai McBride is a photographer, musician, teacher, and avid cyclist who recently uprooted from Brooklyn to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent the last ten years teaching photography and managing the photo facilities at Columbia University, his alma mater, where he received an MFA in 2008.
Born on the island of Kauai in 1972, by his 18th birthday Kai had lived in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, Oahu, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. He sharpened his powers of observation while adjusting to life between suburban ranch-style homes, cabins with no running water, and a 20-foot teepee in the field of a commune.
His photographs have been exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, and are held in public and private collections. His first monograph, About Face: Picturing Tampa, was published by SPQR Editions in Fall 2016.
Kai teaches black and white photography, photobooks, and more for StrudelmediaLive.