A couple of weeks ago, I was out in San Diego hanging out with the folks over at Nik Software, playing around and giving feedback on their newest piece of software HDR Efex Pro. Today, they formally announce it! Want to see some cool pictures done with it? Read on!

Putting the Efex in HDR
With all of the popularity of HDR, it’s no surprise that we see such a plethora of software out there for an HDR artist to use. With the HDR genre coming into its own lately, the software has needed to get away from its obscure mix of “Oh, I guess this will do” mix of sliders and toning and needed to get a little more formalized and polished. As an HDR Artist, I tend to use a bunch of them, and each of those programs have their own little things that makes me happy. I have to say, there were a series of things that made me particularly happy with Nik’s offering.

HDR METHOD
1. I love the HDR Method slide over on the right – towards the middle. I know i’m probably not going to do the definition justice here.. but let me try to explain. The tonemapping that happens in HDR is based on a formula. Different companies have different flavors of their formula.. but its pretty much that.. a formula. The HDR method takes this to the next level in that instead of using just one, it gives you different variants of formulas, really opening the door to all sorts of creativity on the HDR side of things.

UPOINT & COOL FINISHING
2. The U Point technology is someting that I am already familiar with, using their other software (I like Silver Efex and Color Efex)and it was really good to see that they added it into the processing mix. I’m always telling people, a good part of the HDR scheme is about what you fix -after- you make the tonemap, and this lets you reduce that second step a little. Combine that with the fact that they also have a tone curve for individual colors, levels, AND things like vignettes and I think that this is going to make the processing a one stop shop – I REALLY like that part.

The images that i’m showing here are examples that I did with a copy of HDR Efex Pro. I run the gamut when shooting HDR – from really subtle uses of it, to way out in left field processing that doesnt look much like an actual picture. I really give Nik props for making the software in such a manner that I can hit all of those artistic sides pretty easy. I’ve thrown a variety of images at it and its handled them pretty well. For example.. The picture below is a smorgasboard of detail – really made to be viewed as large as possible. Figured this would be a good idea to just put a big image out there. Click on the image below to see the REALLY big one on Flickr – My favorite part is the top right corner where two people are talking in what look likes a wine area:

So.. i’m very excited to see what people do with this… if you want some more information on it, check it out at the Nik Software site. Great job guys!!