On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Darren Addy <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Bruce Walker <[email protected]> wrote: >> So far, Color Efex Pro 3 is a bit dull. I'm applying it to a studio >> shot and the filters are few (just 15) and mostly unexciting or *way* >> overblown (eg Detail Stylizer, Solarization). >> >> Glad I didn't save up to actually buy this stuff. > > I'd recommend checking out the manual (or tutorial videos) to see what > is possible. Just clicking the presets is only scratching the very > surface of what can be done with Nik Software. > The real power comes in with Selective controls and "Control Points" > (rather than all-image changes). I'd recommend cracking the manual and > reading up on that (or watching some videos where photogs demonstrate > their usage) before tossing it out that fast. > : )
I have, and I did. The control points are limited to to attributes: size and opacity. I tried removing a strong effect from skin tones in an image and I can see from the mask view that it has a lot of trouble recognizing what's skin and what isn't. You can't stack multiple filters in Efex 3.0. You must upgrade to 4.0 to get that, plus the ability to save recipes. If you work extensively on an image, save it, then later on want to re-edit -- out of luck. None of your nifty control points etc. were saved with the image. You'd have to start over from scratch using the original. I normally do these things in Ps. Everything you do there, all created layers, are carried around in the TIFF that is sent between Lr and Ps, so you can always go back and retweak things. I can see where Viveza might be pretty nifty. I've watched a couple of tutorials where that was used to great effect on landscapes, but Color Efex Pro 3.0 isn't worth the dough, unless you go for the 52 filters version and upgrade to 4.0 maybe. Since it was free, I'll just use it in its limited way for the few things it can do. Maybe I can get a future more useful version for an upgrade discount price. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
