Professional and fat-wallet amateur photographers should like the latest version of Color Efex Pro released today by Nik software. This latest edition, release 3.0, incorporates the company's nifty U Point technology.



With U Point, you can place a control point any place on an image and adjust the opacity of one of the plugin's filters just to the area. It's much easier than tinkering with masks and layers and quicker, too. You can get an idea of the power of Color Efex by taking a look at the videos at the Nik Web site.

The plugin is available in three versions: The Complete Edition ($299.95) contains 50 filters and emulation of more than 30 film types. The Select ($159.95) and Standard ($99.95) editions have fewer filters but the same functionality as the top-of-the-line version of the plugin.