Color Efex Pro 3.0 is a quick and easy way to enhance or make creative adjustments to your digital photographs. I used the Adobe Photoshop version. The interface is very user friendly, allowing you to change the size of the window, and switch from having the image and filter list to the image only. Also, the tabs alongside the filter list help you keep the filters organized and quickly find what you're looking for. You can choose to see all filters, traditional, stylizing, landscape, portrait, or you have the option to save filters to a favorite tab for easy access to those you use often.

Above is a split preview of an image I used the Skylight Filter on. When you choose a filter the settings on the right side of the screen change, giving you different options with each filter. It gives you a starting point and you can make adjustments from there. Control points give you the ability to remove the filter effect from an area of the image, or to concentrate the effect there using 0% or 100% control points. Below you can see that I used a control point on the bottom right hand corner to lessen the foliage filter effect on the tree in the foreground.

One of my favorite features, which is only available using the Photoshop version, is the ability to use Color Efex Pro 3.0 as a smart filter. To do this select the layer in the layers palette that you want to apply the filter to. Then click the filter menu and select convert for smart filters (as seen below). Then simply go back to the filter menu, rollover the Nik Software submenu and choose Color Efex Pro 3.0.

After you've made your adjustments and click ok to close the Color Efex Pro 3.0 interface, you'll notice below the layer you selected is a smart filter. If you double click there it will open the interface again and you are able to make adjustments.

Below are a couple more examples of what Color Efex Pro 3.0 can do.

Original image:

Using the Tonal Contrast filter:

Using the Vignette filter: