I have to disagree. With FilmPack, there really isn’t anything I miss. Unless, that is, you are only interested in presets? But then, you also get the Time Machine feature, which adds even more presets. What is more, you can modify any preset and save it as your own.
The challenge is to provide an original image and a version treated with SFX and I will put it through PL with FilmPack.
Yes, but look up in the start of my topic here = Troubles with FilmPack 6 (long story and another topic), but you wrote about Photo Lab, therefore my answer is about Photo Lab.
PhotoLab / FilmPack - all in the same UI - what’s not to like?
I certainly wouldn’t use FilmPack standalone since it means leaving the all-RAW workflow that PL gives.
Of course not use it alone - even it is standalone 
It’s been demonstrated time and time again that the BW in Silver Efex is in another category from anything PhotoLab can do in BW. This is just a nonsense post.
PS. I’d prefer that PhotoLab could do BW easily and well, as it’s a pain to have to use another app. It’s an even bigger pain to create mediocre BW photos in PhotoLab. PhotoLab will not give you this kind of wide grey tone with good contrast like Silver Efex.
I know. I’ve tried. These Silver Efex processed images look like BW photos. BW from PhotoLab looks like colour images converted to BW. And in Silver Efex reaching this level of BW was quick and enjoyable. In PhotoLab it’s torture.
Enough negative: tip for great BW images in Silver Efex. Do not make your colour images high contrast. Make your colour images very even contrast. Add the contrast and definition in Silver Efex. If you send high contrast images (my normal colour processing, see below), then there’s no way to create subtle grey tones.
The processing in PhotoLab for finished colour images and for high quality Silver Efex TIFF negatives is completely different. The high contrast colour image above looks great in colour but would be mostly extremely dark and extremely light shades in Silver Efex.
And yes, it’s terrible that installing and reinstalling Nik is so damn difficult. I’m still on Nik 3 as I can’t bring myself to go through the hell of installing later versions and trying to backgrade if I don’t like them. Nik 3 still works great on an M1 Mac, and I prefer the the Nik 3 interface with control points with the controls compact and on top of the images and not in the sidebar.
Please check here … how about (additionally) running Nik 3.x as plug-in for old PS.
In case you don’t know Affinity Photo 2, you might give it a try. While (of course) the handling is somewhat different than your CS6, it runs really good – and supports Nik 5 … just in case you need it. AP2 comes with a new installer type, but after a lot of complaints, Serif added a compatible one.
If you need help … PM or call me. Wolfgang
Of course, you need to process B&W differently from colour. But, I don’t get why you find it so hard in PhotoLab.
SOOC…
Processed for colour without any presets…
Processed for B&W with the Fuji Acros 100 preset…
Of course, both versions needed other adjustments because the original was such a high contrast image, but apart from a red filter over the sky for the B&W, most adjustments needed applying to both versions.
It is often the local adjustments that make a picture. Although I get the impression you are shooting journalistic shots, possibly jpeg, and just want a quick conversion rather than crafting an image.
Oh, and both versions only took around 5-10 minutes
I sense a few hidden but interlinked concerns of the OP above
…and I’ll reply with a question: Why change?
Sounds enigmatic? Maybe, but it might help you establish your course of action.
Beautifull B & W pictures You show here.
Thanks.
Agree
Thank You very much Wolfgang.
I will look into it (Affinity 2) - it is very cheap, and at the same time it has a “real/genuine” channel mixer with colors - not just for black and white as in Film Pack6.
I need that for my converted infrared camera to make special color photos from the IR pictures.
It’s a little disappointing that DXO doesn’t have a true channel mixer - that’s one of the reasons I’m keeping Photoshop CS 6.
I have read old posts here about infrared (when You have a converted camera), but DXO does not solve the problem, sorry to say.
But Affinity seems to have it.
Thanks again.
Interesting interpretation.
But it’s either DXO software or my software (laptop) that can’t “handle” FilmPack 6 - the one day I tried it 1.5 years ago when it came with DXO lab 5 Elite it worked fine for me (my desktop) , but I didn’t get to try it properly because I was busy getting to know DXO and then the FilmPack 6 expired.
Once I got to know DXO I wanted to try Film Pack 6 again.
Then I got a trial for (my laptop) , but here are the problems, -it only works in DXO 6 Elite and no standalone, and then I’m worried if something has happened since - an IT bug - since it doesn’t run on my laptop, and maybe won’t on my desktop either (?) - therefore I asked for a 3 days trial, but no.
Enough about that.
Yes, You are right I could stay with what I have, but there are som improvements in NIK 5 I would like to try - WITHOUT dxo overwrites my old version.
Best check the requirements and interoperability info, maybe your config is not officially supported.
Yes, this could be the case= It says
NVIDIA RTX™ 2060, AMD Radeon™ RX 6600 or better with latest drivers.
Mine (laptop) is Nvidia GT555m, but Lab 6, Elite, runs fine ?
Desktop= Nvidia Quadro 600
All the other things at the desktop and laptop is high enough according to the requirements
One way to test the Nik functionality would be to install it on a virtual machine and use an alternative email address to register a new trial. Setting up a VM with VirtualBox is not too complicated, but it is well beyond what a standard user would like to do 
A company, DXO, must of course make money, but there must be a balance in terms of the customers.
That balance is shifted here.
The friendly staff at DXO cannot answer me differently than they do because they are subject to the hierarchy where it has been decided.
Such an unbalanced attitude around customers - some, I read, have called it arrogant - has brought a company down before.
Hope that doesn’t happen as I’m very happy with the Lab segment.
If you just want a quick, poor quality BW conversion, PhotoLab’s BW processing would be up to the task. Since BW photography at this point is almost exclusively used for artistic purposes, high quality artistic post-production is what is required in the domain.
Your quick conversion makes exactly my point about PhotoLab BW . There’s no definition or contrast and it just turns the image into a beige smear (colour version looks fine). I understand rooting for the home team, but let’s try and stay realistic and balanced. I.e. keep our eyes open. This is just more PhotoLab fanaticism.
PhotoLab is a wonderful tool for colour RAW conversion and a second-rate tool for BW work. There’s no shame in that.
FilmPack 5 and FilmPack 6 are both great. I have 6 but if I had to live with 5, it wouldn’t bother me at all. Originally I thought I’d get some mileage out of the new Fuji profiles (they are in the new Digital Films section). The Classic Chrome, Pro Neg Hi profiles are quite distinctive. In the end, I still prefer the profiles in FilmPack 5. For Nikon shooters, I highly recommend: Agfa Vista 200; Fuji Pro 400; Fuji Superia 200; Fuji Velvia 50; Leica M-E, M9, M10. Which profiles work best is highly dependent on your camera (manufacturers RAW and colour science is mostly consistent between models, but not always: the Nikon D4 offers completely different and richer colours than the rest of the lineup like Z6, D750, D780, D850, Z50 which are consistent among themselves; the D5 offers greener colours and more difficult to process skin tones than any of the other Nikons).
The colour image above was processed with Agfa Vista 200. Agfa Vista 200 does turn grass a little bit yellow/brown but otherwise does a wonderful job with lifelike skin tones, while intensifying reds and keeping other colours like blue accurate or purple accurate. Here’s a screenshot from PhotoLab 6 with the compare tool turned on, to show what the image looks without processing and with Colour Profile.
To take best advantage of FilmPack, photographers should build a portfolio of three or four different images, typical of your photography style. Then go through all of the FilmPack Renderings with those images and try all of the film Renderings, building a short list of the Renderings which matter most to you. With that list in hand, build a preset for each Rendering which does the basics of lens correction, straightening and cropping.
Put those presets in a single folder. Then when approaching an image set, you can try the different profiles quickly without having to switch between Color Rendering Category and then Rendering, while looking at dozens of options which are irrelevant to your work.
Advanced tip: don’t forget to experiment with the intensity slider with film profiles. Many of my preferred profiles intensify contrast and richen reds. How much any given image requires is a matter of seasoning. That said, the 100 default is the right amount or very close about half the time. The image above is at 141 intensity.
