Tiffen Dfx - Filter Options Galore
I recently purchased Tiffen Dfx V2 Standalone Edition for my Macbook Pro. It comes with over 1,000 filters and special effects for post-processing your photos. While many effects can be recreated in Adobe Photoshop, the ease-of-use to try different effects makes this program a winner at only $99.95 for the standalone edition. It is the equivalent of buying 2-3 actual filters to put on your camera.
There is too many different filters to describe here, but the filters are categorized by filter function: Film Lab, Gels, HFX Diffusion, HFX Grads/Tints, Image, Lens, Light, Photographic and Special Effects.
So what can this software do? Let’s look at these before and after pictures. I took a quick grab shot of a raven at the top of the tree. It is not an exciting photo, but some interesting composition with the location of the bird and the branches of the tree.
Before 
After
I used several filters to create the after image. First, I used the “day for night” filter to make the image look like it was taken at dusk. Then, I added a layer and used a Gel filter to darken the blues in the photograph. Another layer with a grain filter gave it the feel of a film shot and finally, a vignette filter caused the blur and darkening at the edges.
The software allows you to compare different filters easily and to select and mask where necessary. Also, you can change the opacity of each layer. It is a very flexible program that unfortunately does have a Windows legacy and can be seen in some of the menu structure. Nevertheless, definitely worth testing on its 15 day trial; though I warn you that you might likely end up buying at the end.
