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BLACK & WHITE projects 4 (Win&Mac) Giveaway
$99.00
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — BLACK & WHITE projects 4 (Win&Mac)

State of the art BLACK & WHITE development studio!
$99.00 EXPIRED
User rating: 80 64 comments

BLACK & WHITE projects 4 (Win&Mac) was available as a giveaway on August 12, 2020!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$39.99
free today
Uninstall programs without leftovers!

BLACK & WHITE projects 4 is the perfect tool to enable all photographers with a special affinity for black & white photos to make their creative mark. The brand new spectral sensitivity engine allows you to grasp the grey value for every converted colour and customise it to any tone value. The 115 handcrafted presets offer you a plethora of options from your images’ hidden information. Give your picture a 100% analogue finish with high-res film emulations adapted from classics like Ilford, Kodak, Rollei and Fuji.

System Requirements:

Min. System Requirements: Windows 10/ 8 / 7 (32 Bit), Prozessor Core Duo, 2 GB HDD, 2 GB HDD, 1.280 x 1024 Pixels Screen Resolution, Graphic: DirectX-8-compatible, 128 MB, 32 bit colour depth; Mac OS X ab 10.7, 64 Bit, Prozessor Intel/G5, 2 GB HDD, 2 GB HDD, 1.280 x 1024 Pixels Screen Resolution. The plug-in functionality is currently not supported by macOS 10.15 (Catalina)!

Publisher:

FRANZIS Verlag GmbH

Homepage:

https://www.projects-software.com/black-white/bw4-bup

File Size:

293 MB

Licence details:

Lifetime

Price:

$99.00

GIVEAWAY download basket

Access Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Acrobat software.
Correct lens flaws and edit your photos.
Developed by PhotoInstrument
Create, manage, copy and edit custom images.

Comments on BLACK & WHITE projects 4 (Win&Mac)

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#18

Contacted Franzis support about installation problems and got a reply in German. Support doesn't come any worse than that.

Reply   |   Comment by DJB  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#17

Fascinating, I just opened a raw image file, and then immediately saved it, and the resulting dimensions were 1/4 the original pixels.

C'mon, Franzis, where's the rest of my picture?

Should this really be named BLACK & WHITE projects 1/4?
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#16

Forgot to add that the text associated with PULL DOWN menus is equally small - again, 4 point or less.

Reply   |   Comment by Barr  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#15

Install successfully on Windows 10 Home, but GUI header (File Edit View Extras Add-ons Information) text size is so small, I have to lean forward to read it - at 4 point or less - and I find no option to change it.

At this point, without an option to change the GUI header (File Edit View Extras Add-ons Information) text size, this will be a quick uninstall for me.

Barr

Reply   |   Comment by Barr  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Barr, You need to set the High DPI Compatibility settings, someone detailed how below (in a reply to comment #7) so I won't repeat it again (you get to properties by Right Mouse Button-ing the program's icon).

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

Thank you so very much, JohnL. :o)

New to Windows 10 with a 4K monitor,, this properties setting option (associated with program icons) was not in my user (knowledge) vocabulary . . . but now, thanks to you, it is.

Given your kindness and support, I now find both the GUI header (File Edit View Extras Add-ons Information) and pull down menus text size easy to read - no more leaning forward.

Thanks again, JohnL.

- Barr

Reply   |   Comment by Barr  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#14

I have not received any email to my request of userid and personal unlock code. Please check.

Reply   |   Comment by Viet-Nam Nguyen  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#13

Thank you Franzis and GOTD!!!

Reply   |   Comment by Richard George  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#12

Installed. Run => Please enter your serial number and click 'Activate'
Copyed and pasted registration code of email:
=> Invalid serialnumber. Wrong serial number!
WHY ?

Reply   |   Comment by Felix  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#11

asks for a registration code after install and saves with a watermark !!

Reply   |   Comment by jb  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#10

..Franzis?All and Always!Thank You,Franzis and GAOTD!

Reply   |   Comment by Kate  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#9

Registration was a snap, love this companie's software.

Reply   |   Comment by Barney Rubble  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#8

cannot activate with the registration code provided it says that the registration code is the wrong serial number please help

Reply   |   Comment by mary c vanparys  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

mary c vanparys,
Did you enter the User ID number then the Registration Code?
When you launch Setup_Win.exe, this is what you need to do to extract the contents first.
After you've finished installing, you need to enter the Registration Code again to complete registration
of the software.

Reply   |   Comment by Robert Smith  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

mary c vanparys, I had the same problem. Going to go thru the steps again. Problem with mine may be that I already have a copy.

Reply   |   Comment by Donald Pullum  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

mary c vanparys, 2nd time of download and install was a charm. New ID and New S# and it registered OK

Reply   |   Comment by Donald Pullum  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#7

Is there any difference between BLACK & WHITE projects 4 and BLACK & WHITE projects 4 Elements?

Note also that on https://www.projects-software.com/giveaway
they offer two additional Giveaways.

Reply   |   Comment by PaulF  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

PaulF,

For the comparison see:

https://www.projects-software.com/compare/3/22,21/black--white-projects-4-elements-vs-black--white-projects-4

A welcome update from a "Projects 4 Elements" (basic level) version previously offered here in 2017 (I missed last year's "Projects 5 Elements").

However, like most other titles offered by them on GOTD, it is not high-DPI aware, requiring changes to the "Properties" settings of any one of the launch icons:

"Compatibility" tab;

"Change high DPI settings";

check the box "High DPI scaling override/Override high DPI scaling behavior/Scaling performed by";

choose "System" (more stable) or "System (Enhanced)" (sharper when it works).

Also, those other giveaways you mentioned are "HDR projects 4 Pro" ("...create awesome HDR-Images from single images and exposure series...") and "PhotoBuzzer" (1-click image editing & effects via presets).

While not the simplest of software titles for photographic editing and image processing effects, they are excellent products that work very well.

Thanks again, Franzis Verlag & GOTD.

Reply   |   Comment by Hmarx  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)

Hmarx, Late thank you!

Reply   |   Comment by PaulF  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#6

does anybody know what's the difference between this offering (BLACK & WHITE projects 4) and the previous giveaway (BLACK & WHITE projects 5 elements)?

Reply   |   Comment by J Crz  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

J Crz,

Franzis Verlag no longer has a working page for B&W Projects 5 Elements (that I could find), so no way to create a feature comparison table. The best available is this archived/captured page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180613142555/www.projects-software.com/black-white/black-white-projects-5-elements

Or compare today's page for B&W Projects 4 with the March 5, 2019 page for B&W Projects 5 Elements:

https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/black-white-projects-5-elements/

Reply   |   Comment by Hmarx  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

J Crz, BWP5 has a "proper" Photoshop filter plugin, rather than the kinda pointless Export Plugin of v4...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#5

After exploring this - Franzis Black and White Projects 4 - especially free today, I see that it has an unimaginable and perhaps unmanageable plethora of controls, from pre-processing raw conversion controls, even for non-raw images, to an overwhelming variety of post-processing controls ... I would need ~700 pages in a notebook to catalog the possibilities of what I might control in this, especially if I ever wanted to apply the same iterative interactive suite of controls twice, let alone with any precision.

This looks like a fantastic program with phenomenally powerful calculating controls, but a program that I will never use, because I cannot imagine finding and controlling the controls.

Thanks for hinting at the mathematical possibilities of what someone can do to a digital image.

Now to create a user interface that is intuitive, accessible, unambiguous, predictable, and has enough contrast to read without squinting and getting my eye up to my screen with a magnifying glass to figure out what the controls are saying in low-contrast black-on-gray ...

I have dozens of Franzis programs, and I have never used them more than for the original day of test, and I have never produced an output presentation image with any Franzis program, reverting to free IrfanView, free Google Picasa, free Adobe Photoshop ( yeah, CS2 free lifetime licenses on the web direct from Adobe ).

Sorry, Franzis, but your programs are like dumping a super mechanic's toolbox of hundreds of customized specialist tools on the floor in front of me when all I wanted was a simple screwdriver, pliers, and a hammer ( which together, in the right hands, can accomplish almost anything that more sophisticated dedicated powerful precision tools offer ).

The user interface is actually the hardest part of programming.

Apparently.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+18)

Peter Blaise, If you get your brain around the basic concepts and avoid the advanced stuff it is very easy to use...

(1) Load an image
- Try the presets down the left side
- If you see something you like save it.

(2) As #1 but play with the film type on the left side

(3) As #2 but simulate having a colour filter over the lens by choosing a colour button at the top of the right side.

(4) As #3 but simulate adding a toning effect when printing by clicking a colour button on the bottom right panel.

Just remember when saving to (optionally) crop in the first dialogue and save in the second (text entered in the first in super-imposed on the image).

That's it...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

JohnL, Oops, film type is on the right side... if you ever ask me for directions have me tell you twice...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)

Peter Blaise, Do you have a link to this free lifetime license of CS2? I would love to check it out.

Reply   |   Comment by Julie Simpson  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-6)

Julie Simpson, there is no such thing, legally, and there never was. It was available for a while free to people who'd previously purchased a licence for it, and people without a licence took advantage. As far as I'm aware that loophole is now closed.

Reply   |   Comment by JDP  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

Julie Simpson, Adobe wanted to close down the Photoshop CS2 licence servers, as they cost money to run/maintain and they made no money from the users. So they made available free lifetime licences for CS2 users. However a bunch of people spotted this and used the system to get themselves a free CS2 licence (illegallly).

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

To [ Julie Simpson ] and others looking for a free alternative in Adobe CS2,

I signed into Adobe with my account, and I see they may no longer offer direct downloads for CS2 with lifetime serial numbers, so let's use alternative avenues, which is our strength here at GOTD.

It's been a 7-to-15-year game of hide and seek, so let's try a web search for [ download adobe cs2 serial ] and or [ PhSp_CS2_English. exe ], and we'll see that there are downloads that work today.

For some background, see [ blogs. adobe. com/conversations/2013/01/update-on-cs2-and-acrobat-7-activation-servers. html ] where Adobe themselves say "... Adobe News, Update on CS2 and Acrobat 7 activation servers, posted by Adobe Corporate Communications on January 7, 2013, Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue [ because they moved to a monthly subscription model for new software, and do not want to maintain old subscription server computers for products they do not sell anymore, and yet they want to fulfil prior licensing contracts ]. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems [ yes, they do ], and are no longer supported [ there's tons of support from the Adobe community and in the wild, and with other vendor's add-ons ]. Adobe strongly advises against running unsupported and outdated software. The serial numbers provided as a part of the download may only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products ..."

In other words, when Adobe migrated to a monthly subscription plan, they wanted to kill their own prior "forever" authentication servers for older software, so they gave the old stuff away with lifetime licenses, essentially saying "here, use this, and leave us alone", and, reading between the lines, Adobe seems to have subsequently been saying "don't use it ... because it's old, buy our new instead", Adobe is not saying "don't use it because we will sue you", in other words, Adobe would prefer that you not buy or use the competition, but it would be awkward to come right out and say that, and the Adobe division that sells new stuff fears loss of revenue if Adobe were more explicit in explaining this any further, just wink wink nod nod, and have at the old stuff, enjoy.

Note that if you sign in to Adobe, they offer a Creative Cloud "free" plan that means "free trials", as if that's special.

Marketing 101.

More like marketing 10101010101010101 ( a digital joke ).

- - - - - - - - - -

More important to me and this GOTD thread is that people try a variety of alternatives and compare their experiences.

Is Franzis Black and White Projects 4 satisfying or frustrating?

How so?

How does it compare?

To what?

What can Franzis teach us, and what can we teach Franzis?

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

JDP,

Correct, it's no longer available for download from their website. Hasn't been for some time now.

Reply   |   Comment by FeMaster  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

JohnL, Just to add, Picasa was discontinued in 2016 and I got this notice from Google "the desktop photo-editing program would no longer work to upload or download photos, or manage online albums" So that ruled out that.
As for CS2 free, as JDP pointed out, Adobe slammed that loophole shut a while ago.
I also use HDR sometimes as well as Color Projects. They may be the older units, but still work just fine.

Reply   |   Comment by DJ  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

DJ , I think people on limited budgets should just get Affinity Photo. It's cheap (and was half-price for a while in mid-epidemic) and isn't that far behind Photoshop...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

In response to [ DJ ] who noted that Google has not updated Picasa to link to web albums ...

Correct, Google has migrated their programming efforts to their web apps, accessible on phones, and seems to be deprecating their computer programs ... except the Chrome browser, which is their cash front end.

However, everything ELSE that is great about Picasa still stands, and Franzis never claims to upload to web albums, so the comparison for that is not appropriate - Picasa beats Franzis at everything except Franzis's fine-tuned miscibility of mathematical analysis and adjustment, such as micro- and defog-sharpening, vividity ( yeah, I just invented that ), and other pixel-to-pixel-relationship-manipulations associated with things like raw file conversion - Franzis beats Picasa at revealing every single flaw in photographs of my partner's skin ... ecch!

Picasa works the same for Windows XP through 10, and for Apple PCs ( not tablets or phones ).

Picasa is ( comparatively ) super quick to organize images if you want, otherwise, it just find them and leaves them where they are ( I reorganize chronologically by date folders ), auto adjust entire directories in a click or two, then resize or print or make a collage or view by face recognition ( linked to email if you'd like ), and prints equally to Photoshop's qualities, but way quicker to get there.

Google has a separate web backup utility that I have not tried.

Folks on the web have published a sequence of about 3 or 4 manual steps to replicate Picasa's now missing feature of linking to web albums - like editing a table in Microsoft Word by copying it into Excel, then back, we all have work-arounds.

Again, free and fully licensed Adobe CS2 is still readily available, see a web search for [ download adobe cs2 serial ] and or [ PhSp_CS2_English. exe ], and we'll see that there are downloads that work today - I just upgraded from my existing Adobe Photoshop 7 using a resource from that web search, and CS2 adding Bridge and raw are nice improvements over 7 .. though free IrfanView and free Picasa also handle raw to my satisfaction ( I have the camera maker's software at no additional charge if I want to get precision-picky ).

Please note your own use of older units that work just fine - the same ges for Picasa and Photoshop CS2 - old and discontinued is almost becoming a marker for performance, polish, and perfection.

And that's my point here for many software offerings - they are not even equal to older stuff we already have, so, what were the programmers thinking, didn't they also try the existing stuff out there as a basic starting point, and improve from there?

Apparently not.

I just tried Black and White Projects 4 again, and saved a raw conversion - Franzis offers incredible raw tweakability - but it resulted in saving a smaller image that was only 1/4 the dimensions of the original - ouch!

Rename it Black and White Projects 1/4?

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Peter Blaise, If you are going to nit pick at something, at least include the whole thing. "no longer work to upload or download photos" I cannot upload my photos to do any work on in Picasa.
As for Adobe CS2 without an Adobe account?...searched for over an hour and kept coming back to "error: activation serial invalid"
If you are happy with what you have, great. I have used Franzis products with great success, and no shrinkage in dimensions, otherwise I would not be tooting their horn.
B&W Projects 4 is older software btw

Reply   |   Comment by DJ  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

To [ DJ ] who
-- still thinks Franzis uploads or downloads our images from the web,
-- and does not understand that Adobe disconnected Internet activation servers for CS2 ...

Really?

Yes, free Google Picasa AND free ( and paid ) Franzis Projects only work on local image files on local computers ... we would use other programs to download an upload any image files from our remote storage anywhere not local, to and from anywhere on the Internet.

Yes, Adobe shut down their Internet license authentication servers for CS2, that's why they gave away licenses that do not need Internet license authentication servers ... we enter the freely-given free license during installation, and then do not register inside the program, because there is no one listening at Adobe's end to any registration ping.

If you need specific help with any of this, feel free to contact me off GOTD and I'll pitch in as much as I can ... but the answer is already in this thread, and worked for me ( I tend to try something before recommending it to others ).

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#4

"Run the installer, click "Internet" button and get re-directed to the online page." OK that works
"Fill in your email first and then your password for Franzis account if you already have one..." Do not have an account
"...or you'll be required to create one" HOW ?????

So how do you create an account, there is no link to create an account, only a 'forgot password' link.

Reply   |   Comment by Dave  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Dave, You need to create an account on their website. After you've done that, registering any offer from Franzis is a breeze.

Reply   |   Comment by Robert Smith  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Dave,
Sorry Dave, I forgot to answer your question. Go here to sign up for new account:
https://www.franzis.de/account
If you don't see English, or your preferred language, your browser should ask you whether you want to view it in your language. I use Google Chrome so I just selected "Always translate German" checkbox. You should now be able to see website translation to your language. Now you can set up a a new account.

Reply   |   Comment by Robert Smith  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Dave, Run the installer, click "internet" fill in your email, check both small boxes below and click send.
Next page pops up "thanks for registering, please fill in your info." Once you fill that in and click send, I believe, if not mistaken, you get a confirm email. (This is from doing it long ago but still looks the same)
Confirm, and code is sent. Then, whenever you get Franzis software, besides sending you the code via email, they will also keep a copy of the code in your profile library.

Reply   |   Comment by DJ  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#3

I'm a huge fan of B+W Projects (although I'm using 6 Pro currently) but it can take a bit of getting your brain around when you start. There are other ways of doing B+W conversions, but IMHO never just change the image to grey-scale and think you're done.

Oh and if you haven't registered any of the Franzis products before it does involve a certain amount of jumping through hoops the first time :-)

Anyway I wrote this guide a while back and I'll post it here (tweaked again, one day this won't take me 30+minutes at 32.3C) in the hope it will be of use to people...

Load a picture, play with the canned effects on the left side, play with the Film Type on the right side panel (which should start on the “Finalise” tab). At the top of that panel you can choose a colour filter to apply to the original (assuming it's a colour image, the same as putting a filter on the lens and using B+W film), either as a preset or use the sliders (the presets just move the sliders, e.g. Yellow -> 60/120). At the bottom of the panel you can select toning options (which would be a printing technique back in the day), which is the same theory of having a collection of presets which set sliders.

Changing to "Expert" in the right panel you can add filters from the list at the top, select them in the middle of the panel and tweak their effects at the bottom (may need scrolling down). (I'd ignore that until you are comfortable using it.)

The boxes at the top of the left panel filter the effects that are listed in the panel, so ignore them initially (although using the favourites stars to select presets you like and then filtering on them is handy). On a faster computer you can use the Eye icon on the toolbar to disable the preview mode and show the final image in the main window, which IMHO is worth doing.

When saving the final image note that the first dialog, where it asks for the title, is going to write that over the image, it isn't the file name. That is the point you do cropping though.

The main disadvantage is the lack of full Undo operations.

Note that although they do add a Photoshop plugin it's under File->Export, not Filters, which IMHO doesn’t really count. You need a later version to get what I'd call a "real" Photoshop filter.

The thing to get your brain around is it a huge pile of image processing tools, which are gathered together into presets in the left pane. All those options do is select a bunch of processing tools and choose options for them, so they are infinitely tweakable in the Expert tab of the right pane once you're up to speed (and if you want to). IMHO there is no need to tweak anything in Expert 99% of the time. (Although stuff like modifying a vignette can be handy sometimes.)

BTW I bought a copy of BWP retail some time ago, but when they had a discount price - which they do quite often, so I'd say rather than paying the full price for Franzis' stuff sign-up for the newsletter and see if a deal appears. Basically 99% of the B+W images I post online came out of B+W Projects.

I suspect they haven't updated the installer and so only have an old version of the Raw file reader (for Raw files saved by digital cameras). To add raw support for somewhat more recent cameras download this (if you're running 64-bit Windows):
http://transfer.franzis.de/projects/RawImageDllprojects_Win64.zip
and replace C:\Program Files\Franzis\BLACK WHITE projects 4\FreeImage.dll with the dll file it contains (if it is newer).
If you're not running the 64-bit version of Windows, i.e. your computer doesn't have a directory "C:\Program Files (x86)" then the file you want for upgraded raw support in 32-bit Windows is: http://transfer.franzis.de/projects/RawImageDll_projects_Win32.zip
If you have a Mac you'll need to get the OSX version of FreeImage from SourceForge and replace the existing one, wherever it might be.

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+25)

JohnL, Thanks for placing the links for others. I too love using Franzis software for photography.
Granted, as you stated, it takes getting use to, but the results actually outweigh the cons. Having used Adobe CC, Photoshop and, when it was maintained, Picasso, Franzis software is unbeatable.
And thanks for the tutorial for others.

Reply   |   Comment by DJ  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

DJ , I think B+W Projects and Sharpen Projects are the best in their fields. (I usually use Sharpen to show someone what they could do with their images, although possibly more by lowering the structure and adjusting other things than actually just sharpening.) Some others are good (HDR can be cool if you read the manual on Ghosting reduction) and some are a bit of fun (Color).

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

DJ , thank you soooooo much!

Reply   |   Comment by unruly  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#2

Once again @Franzis... did anybody ever try to use the Mac Version?

The answer is NO - because again the rights for the unpacker is NOT executeable and needs to be fixed manually.
The download is a zip file -> extract it to folder go to Contents/MacOS and check for the unpacke file.
In the Terminal application issue a chmod 337 unpacker

This is the version in the file:
384 -rw-rw-rw- 1 xxx staff 194332 16 Okt 2015 Unpacker

>chmod 337 Unpacker

This is the correct version:
384 --wx-wxrwx 1 xxxxx staff 194332 16 Okt 2015 Unpacker


Not fixed since 2015

After this change you can install the programm

Reply   |   Comment by ---  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+13)
#1

What would be the advantages of this product vs Photoshop CC's B&W layer tool?
Thanks.

Reply   |   Comment by AR  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

AR, I have no idea. There are other software available which can offer this B&W conversion and more. For instance, to purchase, Luminar 4 is cheaper and has far more effects bundled in.
An alternative is to use a setting on your camera/phone to B&W.

Reply   |   Comment by Ian  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

AR, I don't use Photoshop. This is simple and costs a whole lot less than anything Adobe produces.

Reply   |   Comment by Spam Sorenson  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+8)

AR, If you spend the time to learn it you can do an amazing variety of images that look completely different from one starting image. I once did 19 B+W versions of a starting colour image for someone, and would maintain all were significantly different.
The Presets allow you to look for initial ideas and then filters, toning and film choices allow you to tweak it (after a while you get an idea which film types work best for which images, Fuji Neopan 1600 isn't always the correct answer... just often...).
There are one or two minor annoyances, but hey, it's free (well, once you battle through the registration process anyway).

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

To [ Spam Sorenson ],

Free alternatives:

Adobe made CS2 Creative Suite 2 "forever" licenses freely available on the web when they transitioned to monthly rentals for their later products, thereby offering to addict people to prior Adobe products and displace their competition.

Black and white conversion wise, I prefer free Google Picasa that offers color filters as if shooting a color scene through a red filter or a green filter, or any color I prefer - super quick and easy, leaves the originals alone, exports copies on demand, super easy to batch process, and add other adjustments.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

AR, I'm a pretty heavy Photoshop user. The B&W Adjustment Layer in Photoshop is powerful, but not really comparable to the whole app of B&W Projects (or other black and white filmic apps/plugins such as DxO or Nik). The biggest thing of course is film emulation. There's a quick dropdown menu you can select a film type on, and it'll emulate the tonality and grain (I'll talk about the grain a bit further down, it's not perfect here.)

You can of course easily emulate this in Photoshop with multiple layers, you can use a LUT adjustment layer to load a film preset and then apply a black and white adjustment layer on top of it, and tone it as you wish.

My major problem with this app is the limited resolution of the main window. Your image is restricted to a maximum preview resolution of 2.5 megapixels (meaning it'll only display a maximum of 2.5 million pixels for your entire image. Full resolution images will not display at their full resolution in anything other than the small magnifying glass window to the top right.

Other thing is the default grain emulation on film. I don't know if it's because of the limited resolution of the preview window, but it just looks way too muddy/soft at higher % values. There's no option in the standard view to configure how the grain should look other than how much you want, which is silly. Camera RAW allows you to do this easily with two sliders for grain size and roughness. I did find a toggle in the "Expert" mode of the app to add a film grain filter and customize it a bit further but meh. I'd still be exporting my images and adding grain in Photoshop/Camera RAW.

Overall, if you don't own Photoshop I'd say it's a great app, especially since it's free :P I'd still recommend exploring a few others if you're willing to pay for them, such as Nik's excellent Silver Efex Pro. It has a much more intuitive interface than this in my opinion.
https://nikcollection.dxo.com/silver-efex-pro/

Reply   |   Comment by Dylan  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)

Dylan, I agree with the assessment of the app in comparison with Photoshop. There is another photo app that should be considered that is very comparable with Photoshop, and BLACK & WHITE projects 4, and that being Affinity Photo.

Reply   |   Comment by Hott, D.  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

Peter Blaise, Went to Adobe site but CS2 Creative Suite 2 not offered anymore. Looked in web and found many but all redirected me to Adobe...still could not find it in downloads or anywhere else on Adobe site.

Reply   |   Comment by unruly  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

AR, Thanks all for your insights.

Reply   |   Comment by AR  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

unruly, Adobe CS2 was never offered for free. They just provided lifetime licences for existing users so they could save money by shutting down the licence servers. But some people spotted you could get one of those licences without already being an owner (as Adobe thought it was an old product and no need for super security). A bit like grabbing a bottle of Wine from the corner shop and running, as they didn't have door security...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Hott, D., and this is free?

Reply   |   Comment by pm  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

unruly, https://archive.org/search.php?query=cs2
try this

Reply   |   Comment by Hott, D.  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

To [ unruly ] and others looking for a free alternative in Adobe CS2,

Try a web search for [ download adobe cs2 serial ] and or [ PhSp_CS2_English. exe ], and we'll see that there are downloads that work today.

- - - - - - - - - -

More important to me and this GOTD thread is that people try a variety of alternatives and compare their experiences.

Is Franzis Black and White Projects 4 satisfying or frustrating?

How so?

How does it compare?

To what?

What can Franzis teach us, and what can we teach Franzis?

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

In response to [ JohnL ], who considers duplicating software equal to stealing wine ...

... analogies are so fraught with misalignments.

The goal of an analogy it to learn about something we think we do NOT know about
by comparing to something we think we DO know about.

So, what is it about Adobe freely offering downloads and licenses that we do not know about?

Nothing.

So, no analogies needed.

But ... here on GOTD where folks can freely download software with a license, why would we need analogies to teach us how to understand freely downloading software with a license?

- - - - - - - - - -

AGAIN, more important to me and this GOTD thread is that people try a variety of alternatives and compare their experiences.

Is Franzis Black and White Projects 4 satisfying or frustrating?

How so?

How does it compare?

To what?

What can Franzis teach us, and what can we teach Franzis?

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)

In response to [ TK ] who considered Adobe's offer of free CS2 Creative Suite 2 media and licenses to have been ONLY for prior purchasers of CS2 ...

Prior purchasers of CS2 already have media and licenses, and could have been contacted individually to provide support after Adobe disconnected their own CS2 licensing authentication servers.

Instead, Adobe offered NEW CS2 media and NEW CS2 licenses to ALL Adobe members -- just register and sign in at [ Adobe. com ] to have participated -- and that was for ALL Adobe members, world wide, especially and obviously including Adobe members who were NOT prior purchasers of CS2.

Publicity of the offer probably garnered Adobe many additional members to market to, much to Adobe's profit, by the way, and it appears to be a great marketing ploy to giveaway old stuff -- which costs the vendor essentially nothing -- we see it here at GiveawayOfTheDay all the time ( HD Sentinel comes to mind, they never give away the current version, only the prior version ).

As an Adobe member, I got a copy of CS2 and licenses immediately, years ago, but since I already have licenses for Photoshop 5 ( still works ) and Photoshop 7 ( still works, and is my quick-go-to after free IrfanView ), I have yet to find a need to explore CS2, but I mentioned CS2 here because folks may not already have Photoshop 5 or 7 like I do.

Does anyone really think that any amount of discussion-thread-persuasion will convince someone who is pursuing or using freely-obtained CS2 and licenses, will then decide to delete it, and instead purchase CS2, or purchase other software?

Why all the clamour -- on a GIVEAWAY site no less -- over freely available software?

- - - - - - - - - -

AGAIN AND AGAIN, more important to me and this GOTD thread is that people try a variety of alternatives and compare their experiences.

Is Franzis Black and White Projects 4 satisfying or frustrating?

How so?

How does it compare?

To what?

What can Franzis teach us, and what can we teach Franzis?

- - - - - - - - - -

For example, I just used free irfanView to open and edit a raw image file, and present the resulting image over the web to a discussion group ... Franzis offers nothing as quick, easy, powerful, and free, as IrfanView.

Free IrfanView lets me individually- or batch-process color images in epubs to 16-shade grayscale ( and reduce pixel count as appropriate ) for use on Amazon Kindles that only display 16-shade grayscale anyway ( and only have so many dots across and down ), considerably shrinking epub files ... again, Franzis offers nothing as quick, easy, powerful, and free, as IrfanView.

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)

Peter Blaise, I love Irfanview, but it's really no good for B+W conversions, where Black and White Projects is King...

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

To [ TK ] who wrote "... if ..." ...

Why speculate?

Registering at Adobe is free, and once registered, they offer lots of stuff, including CS2 installations and serial numbers that were untethered form Adobe authentication servers.

Like GOTD offering that expire at GOTD every day, once an offer is "taken down", the source may still be available elsewhere, with a life of it's own, so we discuss it, because it's a real alternative.

[ TK ], you cannot help yourself! It has become clear your opinion on software and other creative media piracy.

However, this thread is about Franzis Black and White Project 4 and alternatives.

What?

You've never used either?

I'm shocked, SHOCKED!

Well, the trial from Franzis is available direct from their web site, and alternatives are available, as mentioned in this thread, so if you do get a chance to try any of them, please do share.

Thanks.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

To [ JohnL ] who has not found the various grayscale features in free IrfanView ...

IrfanView can
- load as grayscale, so you never see color,
- save as grayscale,
- convert to grayscale, individually or in batch,
- and we can tweak and filter colors first to produce the effects of viewing a scene through the red or green filters popular in classic black and white photography.

And as I wrote "... Free IrfanView lets me individually- or batch-process color images in epubs to 16-shade grayscale ( and reduce pixel count as appropriate ) for use on Amazon Kindle ebook readers that only display 16-shade grayscale anyway ( and only have so many dots across and down ), which considerably shrinks epub files ... again, Franzis offers nothing as quick, easy, powerful, and free, as IrfanView ..."

Yeah, so go back and explore free Irfanview and the benefits it's feature set, including the ability to use Adobe Photoshop plugins, including plugins from Franzis projects, which are freely available here:
[ projects-software. com/support ]

I hunger for programmers to inspect the competition before coming here to GOTD, and make their own software at least equal to if not better than the competition, hence we often explore alternatives here at GOTD, which I hope makes the programmers all the more excited to improve.

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

Peter Blaise, I use Irfanview literally every day of the week, and am a huge fan (also paid-for Photoshop and some Raw tools). However if you can't see the difference between a simple colour to grey conversion and the endless combination of tone curves and colour mappings you get in BWP4 you have no idea. I did 19 entirely different B+W conversions of someone's image to show the the range of options that were possible and that simply converting it to grey was almost never the best choice.

Oh and using CS2 without a licence is illegal, it was never available "for free", but I doubt they'll chase you for it.

Reply   |   Comment by JohnL  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

[ 1 ] To [ JohnL ] who noticed the plethora of variables in Franzis BLACK & WHITE projects 4 for tone-mapping from chrome-mapping ( my nomenclature ) compared to free IrfanView ...

Yes, free Google Picasa has a rainbow of color filters for conversion to grayscale, try it and see if it's easier to control, especially in batch mode, than Franzis products, as I already mentioned in my opening response comment #5 here on GOTD.

But IrfanView offering immediate translation to black and white is not "no good", as you claim, it is just not as flexible as color filtering before translation, which IrfanView can do, but for many purposes, simple "desaturation" is completely satisfactory, especially considering IrfanView's easy selection of the number of shades - compare how long it takes you to find, let alone control, the number of shades of gray in Franzis and IrfanView, and how long it takes to use those controls in batch processing, and get back to us with a measurement ( IrfanView is 4-or-5-clicks max, 3 clicks the second time, and immediately accessible via the main menu, equivalently easy in batch mode, set once, remembered in subsequent use ).

The "ooo, ahh" in Franzis is simply math, available in any savvy-math-based digital-imaging-program for years.

- - - - - - - - - -

[ 2 ] To [ JohnL ] who considers the use of a giveaway to be illegal because, licensing, or something ...

Good luck with that [ TK ]-theory, considering that Adobe offered free CS programs and licensing to anyone who would create a verified email address at Adobe login-in ( for Adobe to market to in perpetuity ).

In other words, like many offers on GOTD, Adobe offered the sleeves of their vest, so to speak, that is, Adobe offered something that cost them nothing, that is, Adobe offered digital files that cost then nothing for people themselves to make their own copies of, and Adobe offered old, discontinued versions of programs files at that, in trade for a verified email address for Adobe to market to forever, as well as placating whatever prior Adobe customers would become disenfranchised and dissatisfied if Adobe shut of their licensing authentication servers without providing an alternative for those prior Adobe customers to maintain their working programs that they had paid for, so for Adobe, rather than doing the endless search of privately seeking out only CS users and fixing for them what Adobe was about to break, Adobe decided to broadcast the solution, and let self-identified CS users - and anyone else who was registered with Adobe - to make their own licensed copies of old Adobe CS programs, and that policy was a win-win-win for Adobe, and for Adobe registered license holders, and for Adobe register members.

Think about the marketing savvy here: Adobe gets people addicted to Adobe at no cost to Adobe, displaces Adobe competition for those users, and once addicted, those folks would probably prefer to apply their hard-wrought learning curve to newer not-free Adobe programs rather than toss their learning and switch to learning from scratch the different interfaces and procedures of the competition's not-free programs ... plus there are some folks who can't pay for anything, and at least they will buoy up Adobe's reputation and user cross-support rather than talk about Adobe competition, again, win-win-win.

This giveaway marketing ploy is used by everyone from Microsoft on down.

On a giveaway site, why are some people putting out enormous energies to dis a giveaway, when, usually, we're all chomping at the bit to obtain giveaways, and compare and share alternatives that are also giveaways?

Who here as paid for IrfanView, isn't there a moral obligation at some point to support the programmer?

Is anyone donating to Google in thanks for free Picasa?

But free Adobe CS is different somehow ... because Adobe originally offered only behind a login ... yet kept it up for along time, even after it was published in print and in Internet blogs and publications such as TechSpot?

Don't use a giveaway then if you think the vendor did not intend you to use it - works for me.

Thanks for exploring this and sharing.
.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Blaise  –  3 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
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