Anytime I have been in Downtown Chicago during the last few years I made a visit to The Cloud Gate, aka 'The Bean', in Millenium Park. Never ever I thought it would be possible to make a picture of this great piece of art without any people in the frame. Well, last Saturday during the St. Patricks Day parade the plaza around the sculpture was blocked for the public. I don't know why this restriction was in place but here was my chance to make the click.
Because of the really dull and gray sky the image needed some enhancement. I'm testing some new software, the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7, in my post process work flow at the moment. So far I'm quite impressed what it can do for my photography. I really like how subtle some of the effects can be applied to an image and I believe after driving through the learning curve it can become a big time saver in my post process. Right now I'm just at the beginning of a free trial period and more testing needs to be done before I may come to a final conclusion. I still like and use the NIK Software plug-ins, especially Color Efex Pro 4.0 and Silver Efex Pro 2.0, but as many others I wonder if there is any future for these great plug-ins after Google bought NIK. Hard to believe but only time will tell...
