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Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 Issues Continue #1
Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
November 27, 2012 - 5:44am

This is part “rant” and part “got any other ideas?”

There have been ongoing issues with Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 causing image corruption after importing importing images back into Aperture from HDR Efex Pro 2. Lots of suggested fixes (even by me), but none seem to actually work over the long term.

I've corresponded with Nik several times, and their response is always “it's a problem with Aperture”. Given that the issue doesn't happen with the original HDR Efex Pro (v1) plugin, this leads me to believe that it's more Nik's issue than Apple's.

The only real fix for now is to restart Aperture.

Thoughts/suggestions? Simply suck it up and wait for a fix from either?

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 2, 2012 - 1:48pm

I just started using this plugin tonight, and was wondering why the save and reimport method doesn’t work like the rest of their plugins. When I save the image, a finder window pops up wants me to save it some place and then reimport it myself.

I checked the settings and both boxes are checked ~ this isn’t normal right? is there a fix?

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 3, 2012 - 12:04am

Right now, there’s no real fix. Restart Aperture. Nik/Google needs to get off its butt Andy fix it.

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 3, 2012 - 1:22am

Thanks

I restarted a fews times and the same thing continues to happen with this plugin ~ sometimes I just get so frustrated with Aperture issues from time to time. Now I’m having trouble finding an image that saved on my hard drive the first time I tried it. The only thing I remember seeing was a root folder called Private with about 5 or 6 subfolders ~ I can’t seem to find it at all ~ tried everything

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 3, 2012 - 4:54am

The issue will persist until Nik fixes it. The problem appears to related to the release of graphic memory when the finished image is brought back into Aperture. Restarting Aperture clears this and renders the image correctly.

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
November 27, 2012 - 12:08pm

Well…I actually got a response from Nik via Facebook. Although they blame the recent Aperture update, they’ve advised they’re working on a fix. ‘bout friggin’ time.

ken henke's picture
by ken henke
November 29, 2012 - 1:25am

I am finding issues with Color efex 4 as well as efex HDR. I would say it corruption issues have been happening 20% of the time since summer. Basically, when I import back into Aperture, there will be these geometric shapes on the images. Squares and rectangles primarily. Sometimes the whole image turns into a weird solid color. This is a real issue, particularly if one doesn’t save the recipe!
I haven’t contacted Nik nor Apple because when I had in the past for issues, the point fingers at each other. Very unprofessional to say the least. Almost “Windows” like, unfortunately. Even though folks are content to have subtle updates to Aperture 3, these types of issues are exactly why I want a version 4. Maybe, just maybe some of these stability problems would be addressed. Yea, its a crap shoot, but someone has to start somewhere.

Carl Brauer's picture
by Carl Brauer
December 3, 2012 - 9:03am

SesHat,

Regarding your issue of HDR Efex Pro not automatically importing back into Aperture when you attempt to save it, what file type was the image when you first had it in Aperture and brought into the plug in?

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 5, 2012 - 1:23am

To answer Carl’s question: RAW is imported into Aperture ~ made Define adjustments which then saved and staked with the RAW as a .tiff (like of the other nik plugins do).

I spent over 2 hours on the phone with Nik tech support rep. by the name of Zach. First off, he told me that NO ONE at Nik or HDR’s plugin team knows anything about this issue and that I was the first person to have ever notified them about this exact problem.

After spending over 2 hours trying different things and making changes that make sense. His last two suggestions were to create a new OS admin user and/or go back to an older version of Aperture.

I said NO WAY, because I want to avoid a nightmare down the road with other things on my system ~ it just seems that those were two big of a change to make for a simple Aperture plugin if I’m not having any other issues using anything else on a Macbook that barely two years old.

I than asked him to prove to me that someone in support or on the HDR team has this plug in working with the most current OS and Aperture. He said fair enough and will contact me within a few days via email.

Just as a heads up: their tech support team is now split up into two different locations so make sure you know which location their at. However, they have no way of transferring calls ~ so ask rep to send a quick email while your on hold. Zach was located in the Bay area, and he didn’t know when and if the others were going to join him.

Carl Brauer's picture
by Carl Brauer
December 5, 2012 - 1:37am

I just went ahead and tried what I be;live you said you had done. I have a RAW image in Aperture3.4.3. I then did “edit with plugin” using Dfine 2.0. That image was saved back into Aperture as a TIFF. I then did “edit with plugin” of the TIFF using HDR EFEX Pro 2. I was then able to save that image back into Aperture with no issues.

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 5, 2012 - 1:39am

Carl,

Yeah, I was guessing you were going to say that ~ Thanks! I’m also going to assume your using the most recent Mac OS.

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 5, 2012 - 1:58am

GREAT NEWS:

I just figured out the fix! Based on things I heard during my conversation with Nik yesterday, I decided to try this. I remember hearing Zach say that the HDR Plugin isn’t compatible with Photoshop Elements, and I just remembered that it’s chosen as my default external editor. So I tried removing PSE as the external editor but couldn’t figure out how to do it without picking another app. So I decided to just pick HDR Efex Pro 2 as my external editor ~ IT WORKS ~ all is fine.

Question: I wonder if it will work with out have any external editor chosen? How can I empty out this option?

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 5, 2012 - 5:34am

‘course….when Photoshop CS6 is your external editor, it makes editing a bit more challenging.

I did query Nik again (yeah…i pester them weekly). Their response was “I don’t have any updated information to an Apple or other solution but I will direct your email to our development group for their review.”

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 5, 2012 - 9:31am

UPDATE:

Just spoke with Nik and they agree that me making a change of the external editor probably fixed it, but make sure not to leave it at HDR Efex as the external editor. In fact, I changed it back to PSE and everything works fine now.

Just wanted to make sure the correct information & understanding is posted.

They also mentioned if you get the square and crazy lines of color after the image renders, just resized the preview window just above the film strip window or restart Aperture. He also mentioned making an adjustment to the image like moving the exposure slider will render the image.

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 5, 2012 - 9:36am

SesHat - did he mention whether Nik wil provide a real fix in the reasonably near future?

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
December 5, 2012 - 10:11am

Hey folks, jumping in here.

“They also mentioned if you get the square and crazy lines of color after the image renders, just resized the preview window just above the film strip window or restart Aperture. He also mentioned making an adjustment to the image like moving the exposure slider will render the image.” —Seshat

That’s interesting… this is a problem we had in Aperture ages ago, and it affected us for a long time. IIRC it wasn’t just with images edited in a plugin, but that definitely was a big trigger. Knowing that one little tidbit gives me pause that it may actually be an Aperture regression (old bug coming back).

“I remember hearing Zach say that the HDR Plugin isn’t compatible with Photoshop Elements, and I just remembered that it’s chosen as my default external editor. So I tried removing PSE as the external editor” —Seshat

I’m not sure I understand why this would make a difference. The external editor isn’t touched when you open an image in a plugin. You should be able to trash your preferences, which would reset it to no editor, and still edit your images in the plugins no problem. Did you get any indication of why this helped?

@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 5, 2012 - 10:24am

What’s interesting is that the original HDR Efex Pro (v. 1) doesn’t have the same issues.

Lightscap3s.com's picture
by Lightscap3s.com
December 5, 2012 - 11:21am

Charles: No mention of a fix from their end! I did ask why does it do this coming back into Aperture from their plugins and he said something along the lines ~ it’s a “quirky” Aperture thing

Joseph: No indication as to why it happened at all. He did say it made sense to him why this could have fixed it and that he was going to report it to the engineers. But he also said he was very surprised that it work as the assigned external editor ~ which is when someone should see and get the save to window I was getting.

iHope this helps ~ I’m just glad it’s resolved!

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
December 9, 2012 - 5:37am

I think I found a partial work-around that avoids the need to restart Aperture.

Select the images you want to edit in HDR Efex (assuming you’re in split view mode), then….switch to Viewer mode, edit to taste. Wonky, weird, but….no graphics corruption issue and no need to restart.

That said…Apple an Nik - get off your butts and fix this!

bob william's picture
by bob william
March 27, 2013 - 9:39pm

I’ve been watching this post for some time and so did not upgrade to HDR Efex Pro 2 from version 1. However, yesterday I got an e-mail from NIK saying they were offering free upgrades to their products to registered users. Odd.

It looked like spam to me so I sent a new e-mail (no ‘reply to sender’) to them (at their standard support mail address ) for clarification and they replied that it was legit.

That cleared that away but in re-reading this posting thread before downloading I see no posts more recent than 3+ months ago. Does that mean the issue has been resolved to the satisfaction of those who posted earlier and that it would now be okay to download the free upgrade to HDR Efex Pro 2 without taking on the problems others encountered ?

Thank you

Bob

Bob S.

Charles Putnam's picture
by Charles Putnam
March 27, 2013 - 9:45pm

I haven’t tried HDR Efex 2 yet, but I’ve read elsewhere the problem continues.

The workaround is to go into Viewer mode, select the 3 (or 5, 7, 9) images to be processed in HDR Efex, and edit to taste. The final image will come back into the Viewer. Double-click and it will open normally with no graphics glitches.

Mike Thornton's picture
by Mike Thornton
October 26, 2013 - 12:49pm

This used to be an occasional problem for me but now it’s every time I use HDR Efex Pro 2. I’ve done all the suggestions mentioned here but it still does it every time. None of my other Nik plugins cause any problem (Color Efex Pro 4, Silver Efex Pro 2, Viveza). Is there any update on this from either Apple or Nik?

Mike

Jeff's picture
by Jeff
January 11, 2014 - 5:45am

Ditto Mike, I am seeing this every time I try to save a processed image from HDR Efex Pro 2 back to Aperture.  Any other comments from users that have fixed?

Carl Brauer's picture
by Carl Brauer
January 12, 2014 - 5:31pm

There was an automatic update of the Nik Collection about a month ago. The current version of HDR Efex Pro 2 is 2.209. All the issues that I had previously been having with the Nik Collection and Aperture 3.5.1 not playing well together seem to have been fixed with this latest update. If I do an “edit with plug-in HDR Efex 2”, the plug-in is invoked and I can do my adjustments. Once I enter save, it automatically is saved back into Aperture.

Michael's picture
by Michael
May 11, 2014 - 3:58am

Same problem as above: image is not saved or reimported back into Aperture.

HDR Efex Pro 2   v2.2.11  and  Aperture  v3.5.1

so the update does not fix it for me.  

Just a note: the original post in this thread is Nov 2012.  (And we still can’t SAVE an image…)

 

Chris Biele's picture
by Chris Biele
May 12, 2014 - 4:56pm

I'm using HDR Efex 2.2.11.180 + Aperture 3.5.1 and the save function works fine for me. Although I am only processing one image, not multiple images with separate exposures.

Have you tried deleting your Aperture .plist? Make sure to copy it before deleting. I usually drag them to the desktop before testing, and then trash it or stick it back in the preferences folder if needed.

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