John-Pa's photostream  

The major processing here was in NIK Silver Efex Pro-2. One of the things that I like about SEP is "selective colorization", which allows you to bring back some of the underlying tones in a processed image. It is never really the same as it was originally because you are restoring the color after the B&W process has been applied, but I find that the results are often interesting.

This was shot RAW in the middle of the day with a clear blue sky and bright sun. In SEP-2 it had the "high-contrast; harsh" process applied, followed by a red-filter to darken the blue sky even more. The yellow and lower reaches of the sky then had SC applied with a series of control-points. Although I am not usually fond of cutesy frames, I also added a thin white border in SEP-2 to help separate the now black sky from the back background (which is where this should be viewed).

I have another version of this where I also did a "replace color" in PS-CS5 to turn the bottom of the sky a reddish color simulating twilight. That effect was a little too convincing however, and I think that I prefer this version because the stark bi-color is a bit surreal and menacing.
View On Black
Fujifilm X-100; ISO-200; f8; 1/750-sec; 0ev

Another from one of my local walks around the neighborhood with the X100. This time the shot is processed with NIK Silver Efex Pro-2. This is done with a tweaked version of the "Film Noir-2" filter, which I have never had occasion to use before.

This is actually the outside of a restroom in the local park with glass-block and cinderblock construction, but I thought that it would lend itself to a B&W study.
View On Black
Fujifilm X100; ISO-200; F8; 1/950-sec; 0ev

I went for a walk the other day. I usually try to take the X100 with me whenever I do this so that I can capture whatever strikes me. Here is a scene about a mile from my house.

This was shot RAW and processed with NIK Color Efex Pro-4. Stacking the different filters in one process sounded silly at first, but it is actually VERY helpful. This has the following filters from CEP-4; "Detail Extractor", "Graduated ND Filter"; "Reflector Efex (soft/gold/foreground)".
View On Black
Fujifilm X100; ISO-200; F8; 1/640-sec; 0ev

TriPAC Theater; Pottstown, Pa.
View On Black
Fujifilm X-100; ISO-500(auto); f2; 1/60-sec; -1.66ev

This is not some cheap Photoshop trick. These were all discrete images shot with gelled flash as the backlight and food-colored water in the container. It took me a full day of fooling around in our basement to get this done. The container is sitting on a counter top and there is a white backdrop behind it that the gelled flash (under the counter) is firing into. The flash has a 1/4-in Honl grid in addition to inexpensive colored cellophane.

All were shot as follows;
Canon 1DmkIII; EF24-105mm f4L IS; ISO-200; 85mm; f8; 1/250-sec; 0ev

Strobist;
Camera and flash (Vivitar 285HV) were in full manual mode and the flash was fired with Cactus V4 RF triggers. I adjusted the flash output from full to 1/4-power as necessary for exposure since this varied a bit from shot-to-shot based on how much colored cellophane I had over the flash head and how well the color combinations came out.
View On Black