The perfect shot is just an app away
I love photography but, frankly, over the years, it has become an exercise in guilt and compromise. Why? Because I frequently abandon the tools that create the perfect shot in exchange for convenience, cheapness, or just plain laziness.
For instance, when I go out to shoot for my own pleasure, I don't always take reflectors or multiple flash heads and their stands. And the skylight filter that makes the sky so blue and the clouds so clear - well, at US$100 per filter, you can see why I don't have one for each of my lenses.
And even if I know the shot will look better in black and white, do you think I am going to waste the rest of the colour roll by changing film just for that one photograph?
Digital cameras haven't improved on the situation, either. Have you priced a medium format equivalent (14-megapixel) digital camera body recently?
Their first wonder-tool is called Colour Efex Pro (US$99 to $299), and it allows you to apply standard photographic filters after the fact. For example, if you should have used a polarising filter on the shot, no problem. Just open the image in Photoshop (or any application that accommodates Photoshop filters), select the Polarising Filter from the Traditional Filters Menu in your Photoshop Filters Menu and you can dial in the amount of polarisation you want, and use a paintbrush to apply the filter exactly where you need it.
Depending on which version you buy, Colour Efex Pro has up to 75 useful filters. It includes a skylight filter to reduce haze, a soft focus filter to reduce unwanted detail, a midnight filter to mimic night shots, an infrared filter to enhance foliage, a fog filter, colour correction filters - whatever you need.
Some of the filters replace the specialised film that you previously would have carried in your bag. Their black and white filter converts the image to black and white as expected, but it is adjustable to duplicate the exact film you should have used.
Whether you are doing a news shot, portrait, architectural shot or product image, the black and white filter will duplicate exactly what you had in mind using whatever film you had in the camera when you took the shot.
But black and white isn't the only film it replaces. It creates black and white infrared and colour infrared film, and will even give you an infrared image that is lit entirely by heat instead of light.
Colour Efex Pro also creates popular darkroom effects such as sepia toning. The application creates what looks like an old colour photo. It also includes colour correction filters and filters that imitate different colour developing processes.
In the old days, whenever I had access to a darkroom, I would spend days exploring special effects that are now just a click of a button away. My favourites are posterisation and solarisation. These effects are the result of exposing your photo paper or film to light before developing. Popular during the 60s when drugs influenced art culture, the results are bizarre and psychedelic.
My overall favourite filters in Colour Efex Pro are the ones that save my back - the flash reflector filters. These filters duplicate the fill lighting effects created by flash reflecting umbrellas. The light is soft and enveloping, and the result is professional-looking portraits.
Most pros wouldn't shoot without these reflectors, but for their weight and awkwardness. Well, Nik's Colour Efex Pro saves the day by duplicating the effect of these reflectors after you get home. In the application you can not only shift where the reflector aims, you can use different coloured reflectors like gold and silver, depending on whether you want to warm or cool your subject.
Nik also makes two other products that directly address the photographer's dilemmas. One is Nik Sharpener Pro (US$79.95 to $329.95), which gives you a higher resolution image than your camera actually takes. It uses an effective proprietary technique that sharpens and increases detail accordingly.
The other tool is called Dfine (US$99). It removes digital noise and artifacts that are peculiar to each pro or 'presumer' digital camera. It is like you spent twice as much on your digital camera.
All of their applications provide professional-grade results and are simple enough for a novice to use.
Finally, I can experience the joy of photography and no longer have to suffer from compromise and guilt. The images I want can be perfected when I get home.
