Review by Michael McKee

The filter set is fun to use. It offers many easy to use effects and the ability to customize those effects.

I got a review copy of the stand alone software and spent a few hours playing DFX. It’s a pretty good product. It works fine on my Mac. An older version of the program was slow as molasses, but it looks like Tiffen has solved the speed problems. The number of filters offered is large. If you are looking for the same kinds of effects for your computer as you can get from apps like Instagram, you might find this very useful. Actually Tiffen DFX has a lot more available options.

This is stand alone software. That’s both the good and bad news. If you don’t have a version of Photoshop, Lightroom or other photo editing software, you can use just this. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if you do already one one of those programs, you can’t use this as a plugin. For that you need the more expensive version. Compared to a similar program, Perfect Effects from onOne software, which is $99 and works both as a stand alone program and as a plugin for most photo editing software, DFX3 seems pretty expensive. DFX v3 Standalone is priced as professional software, but without the ability to work as a plugin, serious photographers won’t bother with it.