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.