Nik Software's Color Efex Pro 4

 Of the companies that make a suite of Photoshop plug in's, I personally fine Nik Software's group of software products to be the best of the breed, from Viviza to Silver Efex Pro, the are just darn good. Their latest addition, Color Efex Pro 4, is really a great upgrade and improvement over their prior version. First of all, Color Efex Pro 4 in their Complete package, comes with an impressive 55 different filters with each one individually controlled to the photographers pleasure. Additionally, Nik Software allows each user to develop their own receipts (presets) and to easily apply them to their images, or to get yourself started, one can download their 86 receipts already developed.But for me, the big changes and the key factors that one can do with this product are:

• The ability to stack filters. For me, this is huge. Nik has several filters that I really like but previously one had to process each filter separately which sometimes made for a very long workflow. What is nice now is to the ability to view the accumulated effect of applying the selected filters before they are processed.
• The ability to stack filters means that one can apply their U-point technology separately in each filter. Under this process, one can choose the opacity of either whole image and/or the U-point. For example, one can choose to not apply the filter to the whole image and only apply the filter to a selected section of the image or do the reverse; apply the filter to the whole image and then apply one or multiple U-points to specific sections of the image where one either does not want the apply the filter effect or reduce its effect.
• A small thing, but now one can scroll through the filter list with the mouse over scroll ball button.

Here is an image I took a couple of years ago at Grand Tetons National Park. As you can see, the Teton's are primarily backlit/side lit by the setting sun with the mountains and sky reasonably exposed but with the foreground under exposed.

Grand Tetons primary image

In this image, I applied the a) Graduated Neutral Density filter, b) Tonal Contrast and selectively the Contrast Control....

Even a photographer and writer that I greatly respect, Michael Freeman, says about contemporary digital photography, that it is important for the photographer to shoot images with the foreknowledge of how the image will be processed. As good as digital cameras are there are still limits to this technology and being aware of the tools that one can use in post processing, only makes the final product that much better. The Nik line of products are one of the must have tools to produce superior results.