After using this software for about a month now, I can honestly say that this is my new favorite software package! I have used it on many of my new images, and reworked several of my older images with it and love the look I can achieve.

Before you start to use the software for the first time, I highly recommend going through the training video that can be purchased with the package. The video takes you through each of the effects and gives you practical examples of how the effects can be used on images. It also shows you how each option within an effect will alter the look of the effect. You will be shown how to apply the effects either globally or in the brush on mode which you can use to selectively apply each effect. This training video was put together very well and gave me insight into the nuances of each effect and an overall confidence in using the software. The software comes with a large variety of presets for each effect which can get you started right away, but if you review the training video first, you really won't have a need to use those presets and will have much more control over your images by customizing and setting the options for each effect yourself.

The work area of this software has a very nice layout with a large preview window and an option to view the image in its original state after effects have been applied. I find this option very useful and helpful in determining if I like the results of an effect or not. Effects are applied and seen immediately in the preview window. While some effects can take quite a bit of time to be applied to high-res images when you are transferring back to your base editor if using the AutoFx software as a plug-in, the results are well worth the wait. And overall the software works quite efficiently.

As stated above, each effect can be globally applied to the entire image, or brushed on to selective areas. Most effects also come with a gradient tool that you can use to apply the effects to certain areas of your image which is a very handy option to have. What is really great about this software is that even though you can load and use the effects with masks you have created in your host software package, the brushes do such a great job applying the effects to selected areas that I haven't felt a great need to use masks for selective applications of the effects. You can change the opacity and size of the brush, and the software does a beautiful job with seamlessly blending the edges of where the effect is applied. I have selectively applied many of the effects to very finely detailed areas of an image and achieved a very smooth transition from the applied effect to the areas where it was not brushed on.

Another thing this software does very well is to apply the effects that can nicely increase contrast, tones and colors in your image without blowing out the highlights! This saves the photographer a lot of time worrying about and fixing blown highlights that can occur with many linear adjustment tools that are applied to the entire image in your normal software editor. And with the option to erase an effect or only brush it on to selective areas, this software makes dealing with highlights a much easier task.

Multiple effects can be stacked together and saved in the preset folder. This allows you to re-use an effect stack on a batch of images with similar tones or a series of images taken in the same conditions. You can change the opacity of each effect in the stack, or turn individual effects in the stack on or off depending on your needs.

While there are too many effects to go into each of them separately, I will touch on a few of my favorites.

I have found that using the Darken Colors, Deepen Tones, Enriched Black and Vitality effects give lovely rich tones and colors to my images. I generally brush these effects on to selected areas instead of the entire image. These effects in conjunction with Tonal Smooth, Color Contrast and Multiply Darks really enrich my images and have at times taken the place of using the Curve tool in my regular editor.

You can also use the Hand Tint, HSB adjust, Black and White with varying opacities selectively or globally to achieve some very nice tinting and coloring to give your images a beautiful artistic look. I also like to use the Hard and Soft Posterize effects on my digital art pieces as you can create some interesting results using these tools.

The Green Foliage effect can really make your greens pop in your images. I tend to only use this tool on selected areas of my images like trees, or foreground grasses.

The Restore Details effect works very well in bringing out lost details in the shadow areas of an image. I have found that this effect works well in conjunction with the Tonal Smooth effect to even out the tones in images that have widely varying tonal ranges.

There are many more effects for you to explore and master with this package. Using them in conjunction with each other gives you unlimited possibilities from basic image editing to creating artistic masterpieces. There are no limits to what you can achieve with this software package and each user will find unique and exiting ways to apply these effects to their own images!