NIK HDR Filters: Any Feedback on this Filter?

[sirrduke2010]

I have to say that "NIK HDR filters" are the easiest of the HDR filters that I could used. Very consumer friendly. I have used "Photoshop CS3" and "Photomatrix Pro" to do HDR but I found them to be extremely challenging and learning to use them. Does anyone else have any opinions on this? If you want to try you can do so for 15 days free.

Mark

[Alan_P]

I have been using it and I find it very easy to use. The realistic presets are usually my starting points. I find that the control point feature often makes it unnecessary to do further processing in Photoshop.

The NIK HDR merge is another story. I tried it several times and found it to be much slower than CS5. I know that a tripod is recommended for HDR, but I will not hesitate to try one if I don't have one with me, even with my point and shoot. CS5 does a very good job of merging and blending my handhold shots. The deghosting feature in CS5 is also greatly superior.

I have given up trying to use the NIK photomerge utility in favor of CS5, but the NIK HDR filter is much better than anything else I have tried.

Alan

[mistermonday]

Sirrduke, I have written off Nik HDREfex , at least for the time being. While it has a nice interface and the Control Point technology is cool, I find it has some critical flaws. First and foremost, it blows out certain highlights and there is no recovery. It has a tendency to significantly increase saturation when making exposure adjustments, comparatively brings out less detail in the shadows, and is intolerably slow compared to competitive products. So far after testing a number of other products I find Photomatix still ahead of the entire pack. Its user interface may not be the most slick but it does a superb job of merging files and never blows a highlight.
Regards, Murray