Digital Home Thoughts: Nik Software Announces HDR Efex Pro

"San Diego, CA - August 25, 2010 - Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) today announced HDR Efex Pro, a completely new HDR imaging toolkit designed to help photographers quickly and easily achieve the full spectrum of HDR enhancements from the realistic to artistic. High dynamic range photography is a process in which multiple exposures are captured, aligned and merged to generate a single image that enables a much wider range of colors, highlights, and shadows. HDR techniques are typically used to enhance landscape, architectural, nighttime, and artistic photography. New HDR Efex Pro overcomes limitations in other software tools with a revolutionary all-in-one approach that enables both realistic and artistic effects to be applied within a single tool."

I really like HDR images - so long as they're not overdone - but I have yet to purchase a tool to create them with. Lightroom 3.0 still has no HDR functionality (one of my complaints with it as I work on my review), and my image processing is also done in Photoshop Elements 8, which similarly lacks HDR tools. I've tried several tools, and they've mostly fallen flat when it comes to ease of use - I don't feel like I have hours to spend learning a new tool, so it needs to be reasonably intuitive. HDR Efex Pro isn't cheap at $160 USD, but if it does the job, it might be worth the asking price.

What's your preferred HDR tool?