For a long time, HDR fans mostly used Photoshop or Photomatix to process their images. While both products do a respectable job, there hasn't been a "perfect" plug-in or software package for processing HDR images. As someone who never did HDR before, I tried Photoshop CS4's Merge to HDR option and wasn't pleased with the results. In this previous post, I explained my first attempt at HDR imaging and I was pretty happy with my results from Photomatix. However when Victor Ha from Nik Software visited us a few weeks ago I was blown away by what he was showing me on his laptop. HDR Efex Pro from Nik Software has finally made HDR processing easy. I'm not talking about "easy" as in automatic or dumbed down either. There are tons of controls and sliders in HDR Efex Pro. But you shouldn't just take my word for it, Photoshop Wizard Matt Kloskowski gave HDR Efex Pro a brief rave review as well. The screen grab from his review and an extensive video from NIK are after the break! You can pre-order HDR Efex Pro for the next week from us as well! After the week is up you're out of luck until it is released to everyone.
Here is an awesome video from NIK Software on HDR Efex Pro:
Here is Photoshop/Lightroom Pro Matt Kloskowski's take: Article or click the screen grab below to enlarge.
I am looking forward to getting my hands on this software myself. One of the biggest reasons I have avoided HDR imaging is the lack of clear/concise control in Photoshop and/or Photomatix. Again I've seen great results from both methods, but NIK looks like they have a real winner here.