HDR Efex Pro Review

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HDR Efex Pro Review
Text and images by mavenimagery



HDR Efex Pro, Nik HDR Efex Pro, Nik Software's previously-announced HDR processing plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Apple Aperture is now available for Mac and PC.
Before typing a word, I have read a dozen or so reviews by both the pros and the enthusiasts, and some by DP (Digital Photographer). Prior to reading what others have said and experienced, I have watched a video from Nik Software web site www.niksoftware.com/hdrefexpro/usa/entry.php .After the usual blaah blaah about HDR and what it can do, Chief Technology Officer, Nils Kokemohr, expectantly, went on praising the software with a glow and proud expression on his Nordic pale face, his eyes beaming through a geeky pair of glasses onto the monitor which is displaying the interface of HDR Efex Pro with more than two dozen (31 actually) presets all showing an almost-look-alike thumbnails of a glowing, dramatic-cloudy skyline that would look great taking by any of today's DSLR or even point and shoot compact cameras. All looked impressive and promising. OK, let’s get with the program and become more familiar with it.
First, the good news: most of the presets are Heaven-sent for the Hyper and surreal HDR look lovers.
Second, the good news: it’s algorithm, unlike Photomatix Pro 3, engine generates a non-destructive (almost non-cooked, crisp pixels), realistic HDR look. But, nothing awe inspiring since Photoshop’s HDR Pro generates the same look. Sorry…
Third, the bad news: it’s hellishly sluggish and will require a grave-digger, laborious work in Photoshop to actually make a semi-decent looking image, that would make you better off working in Camera RAW. You may have to load your images and go grab a sandwich or watch your favorite show while the images are being rasterized (?) and generated into HDR. Better yet, upload them overnight and come to work the following day. I know, I'm exaggerating a bit but speed is a major factor in a professional photographer(s) workflow.
The best result can be achieved with the Clean (though, some more cleaning, tweak-n-level, denoising attack will require in Photoshop) preset since I couldn’t find any slider relating to reducing noise. This lack of feature is enough to do me right here without saying one more word, but, since I have started, I will continue sharing my first encounter with Mr Nik’s new genius (no pun intended) and hoping to be wrong by discovering some great hidden treasures later-but later might never come since I’m afraid of being more disappointed and waste time as I did with FDR Tools, and I really believe in first impressions. I admit I have used a very challenging (neutral, less structured and not very HDR friendly image; ignore the images, they're not completely processed and merely to accompany the review) image but, hey, I don’t test-drive a car I’m buying in the parking lot of the dealership or the local streets. I take it on the highway and squeeze the "Dejesus" out of it.
Chromatic aberration was profound and almost non-existent. Although, this can really save time in postproduction, again, not to die for feature. Remember, we still have to deal with luminance and digital noise so not much gain here. Again, this would do me right here, right now. I’m religious about clean postproduction. I frequently, find myself zooming in 300%, cleaning pixel-by-pixel for hours and on. If you take your work seriously then good enough isn’t good at all. Nik Corp, said, “HDR is not evolving,” gesturing with his hands like Ozzy Osborne” It’s splintering. Now, photographers have a chance to take their work to more definitive level” Can you believe this guy? Ouch, nuh! Everything evolves. We evolve, mostly in sub-conscious level, every single minute…I’m evolving right now as I’m typing these words; my fingers becoming more dexterous with each key I hit; I’m learning, by the second, from my inner-subconsciously accumulated Knowledge Bank. The eye sees and the brain records without you pressing the Rec button. I digress, sorry.
Let’s get with the program (again).
More to come...mean while I recommend you download the 15 days trial and dabble with; so that we all have some insight and experince (hope you do better than I did) next time.

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Here are some first impressions and experiences from the following unhappy users:
3 Demo’s out. I gave at a few runs yesterday. Generally I’m not too impressed with ghost reduction and alignment. It’s probably best to use Photoshop or Photomatix for building the 32-bit image. I’ll try doing this then entering into HDR Efex for tonemapping and lighting. The aproach to HDR is really smart, but if your images aren’t perfectly aligned or objects are moving, I’m not sure this software alone can do the trick… yet


Fred Graff

4 I have just started doing multiple image HDR. So far I am using CS5 and the demo of NIK HDR EFX Pro. Half of my
images were taken using a tripod and half handheld. I found that CS5 did an excellent job on alignment and ghost
removal on handheld shots while NIK’s alignment and ghost removal was really poor on the handheld shots. Really
like NIK’s presets and found CS5′s almost unusable. For realistic images I preferred CS5 for a natural look and
NIK for a surrealistic look. Next I will try Photomatrix 4 as a comparison.


Craig Lewis

5 Now that HEP has been released, I think you need to post a review of it. In my (not very) humble opinion, it blows away everything else. I’ve been using Photomatix for more than five years and even am a beta tester for both Photomatix and HEP. Even without control point technology, HEP is better than the other HDR programs. Add in CP and all of the others are just taking space on my hard drive.