There are plenty of image effects out there, but many are either of poor quality or have a gimmicky feel. That is not the case with Nik Software's Color Efex Pro.

My review of Color Efex Pro 3.0 was using the Lightroom version. The plugin runs as a standalone application, but works seamlessly with Lightroom, conveniently creating a duplicate of the image (if you so choose) and stacking it with the original. From there you are taken to the main Color Efex interface.

Like other Nik Efex plugins, Color Efex makes selecting an effect simple by providing a variety of Filters. Filters are much like Lightroom presets in that they do not alter the image themself, but apply a set of parameters to the settings that are applied to the image. So if you select one of the Filters on the left side of the screen, the settings on the right side change correspondingly. This is very powerful as a way to get a starting point, from which you can start tweaking the details. Each effect has its own unique set of parameters that can be adjusted. Once you've selected an effect filter, you can begin customizing how the specific parameters for that effect will be applied. Filters can either be gathered into logical groups or starred to show up in the Favorites tab for easy access. The base set of filters are categorized into Portrait, Landscape, Stylizing, Traditional.

While making changes you can always check how much change is being applied by reviewing quickly in the Loupe view in the lower right hand or by enabling either split or side-by-side view for the main window.

Another flexible tool in the toolbox is the availability of Control Points. These allow the placement of localized adjustments to the amount and location of where the effect is applied.

When making color effect changes ColorEfex Pro is full featured. Every effort has been made to make the fine tuning options available and intuitive. The plugin provides a wide variety of valuable, non-gimmicky filter effects.