Nik HDR Efex Pro2
Produce vibrant and natural-looking HDR images. Nik HDR Efex takes the guesswork out of crafting stunning HDR photos, intelligently stitching and blending your images with just a few clicks.
One of eight powerful plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop® and Lightroom Classic® offering endless creative possibilities.
The HDR Efex Pro 2 Software from Nik Software is a software plug-in for use with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Aperture. It allows you to create stunning High Dynamic Range (HDR) images by aligning and blending multiple exposures of the same scene. The software is optimized for use with multi-core CPUs, 32- or 64-bit systems, and GPU acceleration.
HDR photographs typically require software to blend an underexposed image, a properly exposed image, and an overexposed image together in order to create a stunning image that preserves shadow and highlight detail beyond that which the camera sensor can capture alone. This software gives you many options for creating HDR images, including one-click visual presets, advanced tone mapping algorithms, detailed HDR controls, and U Point Technology controls for fine-tuning colors and tonality.
- High Dynamic Range Imaging
- 32- and 64-bit Software Support
- Updated Tone-Mapping Engine
- Utilizes GPU Acceleration
- Added Depth Control
- Chromatic Aberration Reduction
- Improved Ghost Reduction and Alignment
- Photoshop, Lightroom & Aperture Plug-In
- Windows & Mac Compatibility
How it works
There are two ways to create an HDR image with HDR Efex Pro 2 – you can load a single image (ideally a RAW file, which you can now do via the Nik Collection 2 and DxO PhotoLab) and use the software’s tone-mapping and HDR tools to pull out the shadows and pull back the highlights, or you can follow the more technically correct route and merge a series of different exposures. This is the route you’ll need to follow if the brightness range in the scene is too great for a single exposure, even with the extra dynamic range headroom of a RAW file.
HDR Efex Pro 2 does a good job of merging different exposures, removing chromatic aberration and controlling ghosting artefacts pretty well.
Once your exposures are merged or your file opened, you’re presented with a full image preview in the centre of the screen, an array of preset effects arranged in categories in a vertical panel on the left, and manual HDR tools stacked in a panel on the right.
Previous versions offered around 30 preset HDR ‘looks, and the Nik Collection 2 update adds ten new “En Vogue” looks to this list, and they offer a good range of effects and ‘looks’. HDR Efex Pro use the open image to display ‘live’ previews for each preset, so it won’t take you look to find a look that’s close to the one you want.
This is where you switch to the manual tools on the right for any fine-tuning, and these are organised into collapsible Tone Compression, Tonality, Colour, Selective Adjustments and Finishing panels.
The sliders in the Tonality and Colour panels are pretty obvious, but the Tone Compression sliders less so. Tone Compression presumably controls the extent to which highlights and shadows are equalised, with the Method Strength slider controls the combined effect of the HDR Method options below.
These consist of Depth Detail and Drama settings. These aren’t sliders as such because they have click-stopped positions corresponding to specific ‘methods’ which vary by type rather than by degree. For example, the Drama control offers Flat, Natural, Deep, Dingy, Sharp and Grainy settings which sound descriptive enough but give you no clue as to their purpose or technical basis.
Is it any good?
HDR Efex Pro 2 is a good deal better than most HDR tools out there on the market, with a wide variety of interesting and effective ‘looks’ and the ability to create HDR images that cover the creative spectrum from subtle-and-natural through to over-the-top. The new “En Vogue” presets in the Nik Collection 2 are a worthwhile addition, too.
Its results aren’t quite as clean and artefact free as Skylum’s Aurora HDR, but that’s a more expensive and more specialised tool. HDR Efex Pro’s controls and jargon aren’t always helpful, though, which is perhaps a bigger problem, as you end up rolling the dice with three HDR Method controls whose functions aren’t clear and whose interactions and permutations are almost endless.
However, it’s not hard to find an HDR ‘look’ you like with HDR Efex Pro 2, and it deserves proper credit for that given that many HDR tools are just too complex and difficult (and often ineffective). And remember this is just one plug-in in a bigger collection, so it’s great value too.
