Hdr efex pro
First of all, I had no problem whatsoever installing the program on the laptop on which I'm typing this article. The particulars of my glitch seem to have been caused by a combination of two factors. Much of the information on this page was likely gathered from working with users like me. By this point, Nik has stepped up to the issue and published a detailed troubleshooting page on their site.
HDR EFEX PRO PRO
To run efficiently, HDR Efex Pro leverages features found only in the latest video and other drivers. It would seem they were a bit overwhelmed both with the popularity of their new offering as well by what their cutting edge technical ingenuity might inflict on users that that weren't prepared for it. I did have a bit of a technical glitch getting the program activated and I found it more than a bit frustrating getting support from Nik to solve it. And adding the power of Control Points to tweak those algorithms creates an incredible tool for getting great results. Nik advertises that the multiple, proprietary tone mapping algorithms they incorporated into HDR Efex Pro could produce not only "artistic" interpretations but also realistic ones.
In fact, when you mention HDR photography these days, more people will probably think you mean that surreal, over saturated pop art look than think you're talking about a technology to create realistic images that overcome the inherent exposure range limitations of current cameras and sensors.īut there are plenty of photographers out there like me who have longed for the ability to create realistic, naturalistic HDR images and have been frustrated by the tools available from Adobe, HDRSoft and others. But those same sliders could also create some very odd looking "pop art" effects that interestingly have become somewhat trendy these days as an art form unto itself. Primarily by virtue of providing more sliders to control how the tone mapping was done, it was able to do a much better job than Adobe's tone mapping was capable of.
HDR EFEX PRO SOFTWARE
The leader in HDR software has long been Photomatix Pro from HDRSoft. Current versions of Photoshop can merge multiple images to create an HDR fairly well, but Adobe's tone mapping functions to then convert the result into a usable image are, in a word, poor. Which brings me to the state of HDR software when Nik announced HDR Efex Pro. And I'm saying this as someone who appreciates the control Photoshop Layer Masks give me. In all of these, it's actually quite uncanny how well Control Points work. Since then, they've added it to the popular Color Efex Pro and the more recent Viveza and Silver Efex Pro. Nik's "U Point®" Control Point technology was first introduced in the joint Nik / Nikon venture that became Capture NX (now Capture NX2). The Layer Mask capability in Photoshop is obviously much more powerful, but requires much greater skill and time commitment from the user in order to get the best results. Those of you already familiar with Nik Software as a company are probably aware of their Control Point technology that employs automated, content aware image evaluation to build adjustment masks with only a suggestion or two from the user as to what should be included or excluded.
Here are some thoughts on my experiences with it, both good and not so good. Particularly if you are interested in realistic looking HDR. You owe it to yourself to try it if you haven't yet and are interested in HDR. A few months back, Nik Software released their long awaited high dynamic range application called HDR Efex Pro.