Colosseum and other HDR's from Italy

[bob williams]

Playing around with the new HDR Efex from Nik Software(please download it and try for a free 15 day trial(I think)), has been nothing short of , well, mind blowing!! I'm not knocking Photomatix(used it for a couple of yrs), but HDR Efex has more of everything to offer, plus presets, plus more control, plus, plus , plus!! And it has their control point technology, too. There are, actually, too many ways to get to where you want to go, and it takes a lot of fooling around(read....experimenting) to get the right combination that your particular eye finds appeasing!!! But Jan, these are just my opinions....and I am by no means a professional photographer!!

Gregg, I took your advice and downloaded the15 day trial of HDR Efx Pro---All I can say is WOW, IMHO this software is leaps and bounds better that photomatix, and I am a huge photomatix fan and owner. I used it as a plugin for Lightroom and the interface, the presets, adjustments and even the control point is extremely intuitive andeasy to use. I also like the fact you can bring up one photo and apply the presets and adjustments--You could also do this in Photomatix, but EFX pro is just so much better. Just 15 minutes with the software and I am sold. HDR Efx Pro is now on my shopping list.


Thanks for the tip,


Bob

[greggf]

Hi Bob....


glad you took the advice. I have to agree with you. I used Photomatix for a couple of years, on and off. Now, with HDR Efex, I really want to get more and more into HDR....although, I do have to admit...with all the sliders, and inputs, and selections, and, and, and....well unless you saved something that you really liked, you would have a hard time remembering how you did just that...know what I

[bob williams]

well unless you saved something that you really liked, you would have a hard time remembering how you did just that...know what I'm saying??!!

I certainly do. But....that is what make sthe presets so appealing---it provides a great starting point.


Bob

[Sheiky]

Playing around with the new HDR Efex from Nik Software(please download it and try for a free 15 day trial(I think)), has been nothing short of , well, mind blowing!! I'm not knocking Photomatix(used it for a couple of yrs), but HDR Efex has more of everything to offer, plus presets, plus more control, plus, plus , plus!!

I quickly tried the HDR Efex pro... And yes it looks great. [Y]

There are, actually, too many ways to get to where you want to go, and it takes a lot of fooling around(read....experimenting) to get the right combination that your particular eye finds appeasing!!! But Jan, these are just my opinions....and I am by no means a professional photographer!!

I'm no professional photographer either...I consider myself an amateur as well. The difference is purely of taste. I like photos to be somesort of natural. Even with HDR I'm aiming to get some sort of natural looking image. Perhaps a bit pushed, but not with the amount that you do.


But that's fine, we just have different tastes and opinions and I like that.


Of course it's hard to compare HDR software, but HDR Efex alligns the images just as good as Photomatix, which makes it the first program that I tried to do so. I've tried multiple programs where I figured that HDR Expose gave me the best and most natural output. Really it looked great, but the allignment was big trouble. HDR Darkroom had nothing that I really liked. Photomatix is a bit hard, but I really like it. It can give you surreal results, but it can also maintain the natural look without getting weird artifacts. With the HDR Efex I found that it's a very nice program for the creative and "more extreme" HDR users. The presets work pretty good and I guess it's a better program than Photomatix for a vast majority of persons.


However I tried to create a somewhat natural picture and I didn't like the results.I didn't like some of the detailing at all.I personally think the skies look awefull.The Photomatix image looked much cleaner. I guess I must try a new image with the "standard" settings to make a "more valid" comparison.


But for the more creative HDR'ers among us, I agree that HDR Efex looks like a very nice program.


I'll try some more when I have the time.


Jan


But then again, it's hard to compare programs without having the same settings.