Color control is vital to making a subject pop.  Nik Software provides a powerful color control solution with Viveza.  Nik Software’s U Point® color control points provide Viveza with exceptional color control precision.

Color Control Workflow
Open an image in Photshop, select Nik Software and then Viveza from the Filters menu.  Alternatively, access Viveza in Aperture (Images -> Edit With -> Viveza) or Lightroom (Photo -> Edit In -> Viveza).  Viveza opens in its own user interface that includes preview, loupe, and filter control areas.

Simply select “Add a Control Point” from the filter control area.  And then select the area of the photo to adjust.  Adjust the sliders on the control point to achieve the desired effect.

Images
To illustrate the color control abilities of Viveza, an image was selected from photos taken with a Nikon D200 (10 MP sensor).  The selected image was processed in Photoshop CS4 using Viveza.  The original and processed images are presented below.

Original Photo

Viveza with 4 Control Points

The above image illustrates the powerful, yet easy-to-direct color control capabilities of Viveza.  To draw the eye to the flower, the first control point was placed on the crocus flower and adjusted to add brightness, contrast, and saturation.  To improve the contrast between the flower and the green leaves, the second control point was placed on the green tulip leaves to reduce the brightness, contrast and saturation.  To de-emphasize and darken the background, particularly the red tones, two control #price points were added.  The third control point is above and to the right of the flower.  The fourth control point is slightly below and to the right of the flower.  Both the third and forth control points reduced the brightness, contrast, saturation and red tones.

These simple to implement color adjustments, made a tremendous improvement to the image.  Now the crocus really pops.

Nik Software has announced that Viveza 2.0 will be available in December 2009 for MSRP $199.95.  This is a free upgrade if you purchased Viveza 1.0 after September 22, 2009.  Thus, if you buy Viveza 1.0 now and get the free upgrade, you will save $50 over the MSRP of Viveza 2.0.

Pros

• A joy to use – great tool
• Powerful color control
• Excellent video training

Cons

• None noted

Training

• Training videos
• Webinar schedule
• Archived webinars

System Requirements:
Windows

• 32-bit version of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista
  (64-bit operating systems with 32-bit host application)
• Pentium III 1GHz or better
• 1 GB RAM
• Adobe® Photoshop® 7 through CS4, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 through 7.0; other Adobe Photoshop plug-in compatible application**
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® 2.3 or later

Macintosh

• Mac OS 10.4 and later
• G4, G5, Intel® Core™ Solo, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Xeon®
• 1 GB RAM
• Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 through CS4, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and 6.0; other Adobe Photoshop plug-ins compatible applications**
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 or later
• Apple® Aperture™ 2.1 or later

** Nik Software product filters are developed to integrate seamlessly into many popular image editing applications that support the Adobe plug-in architecture and there are numerous software applications that accept Adobe plug-in compatible filters. Please consult your image editing application’s documentation for compatibility and installation instructions for 3rd-party plug-ins.

Cost: MSRP $149.95
B&H Photo Video

Contact: Nik Software

VMware Fusion2 is 1/2 off for students and grads.

“For friends and family thinking about getting that new grad a Mac, add VMware Fusion, enabling them to do even more as they venture into the real world.”

VMware enables Windows and Mac applications to run side-by-side, without the need to reboot. And VMware is now offering an academic discount, students and new grads save 50% off the list price of VMware Fusion.”

Regular Price: $79.99 but for students and grads, Your Price: $39.99

Read my review at: VMware Fusion2: Running Windows on a Mac.

VMware Fusion2 can be purchased at: VMWare For U.