Nik

When Google purchased Nik Software last year, the generally held opinion was that Google wanted the company's skills for beefing up image editing in Google+ and other services — but no one was sure what that meant for Nik's standalone apps. Since the purchase, Google put out Snapseed for Android, which allayed some fears, but the desktop app isnt so lucky.

Nik Software has just unveiled version two of HDR Efex Pro, the popular HDR compiling application. New with this version is an overhauled UI, more controls, history browsing to allow you review adjustments, and most importantly, an improved tone mapping engine. Hopefully the changes will help minimize that characteristic glow we've come to associate with automatically generated HDR images.The official list of new features and tweaks is:

Nik Software has just enveiled the fourth version of Color Efex Pro, now available for pre-order on their website. Set to launch October 2011, the upgraded image editing program offers new filters, shareable filter settings, a history browser and more. Here's the full list of new features you can expect from the software: