Photoshop has been the key to creating beautiful effects with absolute ease these days. Starting from Instagram effects to effects using simple combinations of display settings, Photoshop has enabled swift editing of photographs in very few steps. HDR Efex Pro 2 is one of the most advanced software available that helps us to enhance our photographs easily. In this article, we shall learn how to merge to HDR Efex Pro 2 using Photoshop:
- The first step is to download the HDR Efex Pro 2 software. The file size is roughly around 400 megabytes. After downloading, reboot Photoshop. Now go to Filter>Automate>Merge to HDR Efex Pro 2 and then select the photograph.
- Now to open the photo in Photoshop. Click on Filter>Nik Software>HDR Efex pro 2. After about 5 to 7 seconds, the HDR photo is prepared, and there are many presets available for selection on the left side of the photograph.
- Go to the Tone compression bar and set it to 84% and set the method range bar to 24%. There are a host of other features like-
- Depth – Increases contrast of the photo
- Detail – Adds details to your photo
- Drama – Change the drama of the photograph
- Exposure tool – Determines the amount of light in the photograph
- Shadow bar – Adjusts the shadow in the photographs
- Highlight bar – It increases the highlight in the photo
- Black bar – Adjusts the amount of darkness present in the shadow
- White bar – adjusts the amount of whiteness in the picture
- Structure tool – adds details like noise, texture,
According to preference, the values of the above features may be changed to get the optimum image.
- In the colour option, you have 3 bars – Saturation, Temperature and Tint. While saturation bar decreases the colour present in the photograph, temperature bar colours the photo warm or cold. Tint bar further is helpful in adding a majority of a particular colour to the image.
- There is another feature that defines the awesomeness of the HDR Efex Pro 2 software. This is the Selective Adjustment feature that enables the adjustment of Colour, saturation, temperature, exposure, of any specific region in the photograph.
The software also has a vignette tool which can be handy in giving borders to Photographs and make them fancier. The software also has an ND Filter that has the following options:
- Upper tonality – adjusts the exposure of the upper half of the photograph
- Lower tonality – adjusts the exposure of the foreground
- Blend – Allows a soft focus at the centre of the image
- Vertical shift bar – This allows the inversion/undoing of the graduated natural density when it is dragged to the left.
- The HDR Efex Pro 2 software also has the feature of Levels and curves. This feature enables better adjustment of contrast present in the image to give a nice touch to the image.
And now we have finally gone through the important features available in the HDR Efex Pro 2 software. The features are more or less of the same functionality as the Photoshop software. Rather HDR Efex pro 2 enables better control over the editing effects.
