Nik HDR Efex Pro Review
HDR Software Reviews 6 CommentsUse the coupon code HDRsoftware15 for 15% off HDR Efex Pro and other Nik Software!
When I first picked up my copy of HDR Efex Pro, I really wasn’t sure what to think. I’d been in the Photomatix realm for so long, that I had a hard time believeing there really was a worthy competitor in our midst.
Luckily, I push those concerns to the side, and was treated to one hell of an HDR program.
Initial Thoughts
One thing that immediately jumped out at me was the fact that this thing was built to be integrated with Photoshop. Unlike Photomatix, which I feel attempts to try and work as a standalone program, HDR Efex works better a Photoshop plugin than a standalone program.
As someone who does all their photography work in PS and Bridge, I found this to be a really easy piece of software to work with in terms of workflow.
Workflow
Upon loading my first series of brackets I saw a familiar screen confirming the exposures of my three images, but that’s where the comparisons stop. As soon as confirmation was made, HDR Efex jumps right in to creating the image – saving the ghost adjustments and alignment options until later. This was a bit of a change.
However immediately upon seeing me image I was happy with the results. One critique of Photomatix was the “Photomatix look” which is very painterly, and at times fairly surreal. While you can do that in HDR Efex, there are also a variety of options to create more realistic images, which is my personal preference.
HDR Efex outdoes Photomatix big time in terms of preset options, using 4 different HDR algorithms to achieve various looks. It has 32 presets that are each adjustable from there. If you can’t create an image you with HDR Efex, then it’s your own fault.
I should point out that my favorite way to create HDR is to use a preset, and then tweak from there. It makes it easy to visually see what I’m doing, and it eliminates a lot of the guesswork that many beginning and intermediate HDR photographers experience.
Image Created With HDR Efex Pro
Performance
HDR Efex Pro is definitely a little bit slower than Photomatix. The software is slower to load, and image processing takes a little bit longer. It definitely isn’t bad, and is by no means a deal breaker, but I found it to be 4-5 seconds lower to process images than Photomatix.
Processing
The more I process in HDR Efex, the more I like it. The workflow is much more straight forward. It has many of the same adjustments as Photomatix (strength, saturation, contrast etc.), but there are a few features that I love which Photomatix lacks.
The first is the inclusion of two finishing adjustments: Vignette and Levels & Curves. The vignette makes it extremely easy to do just that, add various types of vignettes to your final images. They make it extremely easy to do, and do a great job with it. Definitely saves a little bit of Photoshop time.
The levels and curves tool is very similar to the Photoshop tool. It allows you to make manual adjustments in exactly the same way, but I’ve found the presets to be excellent, and that’s where this excels. If you want to get really detailed with it, stick with Photoshop.
The second feature in HDR Efex Pro that I love is the ability to add control points to your image. You can select any point on your photo and make 8 different adjustments to that specific point (which can be resized to as big or small as you want. This really helps me with image segments that were too hot or overexposed.
Conclusion
While it still isn’t a completely standalone HDR program (you still need Photoshop for detailed layer masking), it’s close integration with Adobe is a huge step in the right direction. Along with that, this is the first real legitimate contender to Photomatix in terms of HDR software, and I’ll go as far to say that I think it’s my new software of choice.
Despite being moderately slower than Photomatix, the results and ease of use more than make up for it.
Use the coupon code HDRsoftware15 for 15% off HDR Efex Pro and other Nik Software!
is it really that good
We’ve been really impressed with it. It allows you to create images with a variety of different looks, which is one area where I feel Photomatix is a bit more lacking. Both are excellent programs though, and I think you can’t go wrong with either.
Hey Sean I am teaching an HDR evening class at a local college and downloaded a trial of the Nik HDR. Initially I was impressed but as I did more and more sets of images to try different scenarios it left me a bit disappointed. I found it’s deghosting not as good as either Photomatix 4.0 or PS CS5′s. I ran the same set of images through all 3 programs and it did the worst job and there really isn’t much control in Nik – EI you can pick which exposure to use, or make a selection like you can in Photomatix. I’d be happy to email you my close ups of all three if you want to see the results.
I also found it didn’t do a very good job on things like sunsets that had an extreme dynamic range. The colors got all wishy washy no matter what setting I tried and in one case it actually gave me banding in the sky and a double image of some cacti in the scene that were silhouetted. Neither PS or Photomatix gave me anything like that from the same images.
So my review is mixed. I really liked the presets as well and it did a really nice job one one of my images, but on others was actually quite awful. I think at the end of the day, and I told my students this – it’s actually best to have a couple HDR software options available to you. Sometimes one will do a better job on a particular shot than another.
i like very much hdr efex pro … but it´s produce so much noise in somes photos… but the Dfine (other program of nik software) delete this noise in a clean way,
i never used photomatix , this happen too?
(sorry my english , i from chile)
look the clouds…
I love Nik HDR Pro for special FX images. PS for regular HDR images.