Like other Nik plug-ins, it comes with a range of preset film and darkroom effects, built with manual adjustment tools displayed on the right of the screen. I started with the Tinted Structure look for the finished shot. The best cameras to buy in 2021: cameras for every user level and every lifestyle! The Nik Collection plug-ins may have been around for a long time, but their preset effects, their tools and controls, and the sense of excitement and discovery they create, are as fresh as ever. It's not all grain and faded film looks. It's used to simulate the look you get from using a tilt-shift lens. Analog Efex Pro is the only plug-in added during Google's ownership. Lomo Redscale is new to this version, for one, simulating the look of color film loaded in reverse. Lenses of this type move their optics so they're not parallel to the image sensor. The Nik Collection also includes some tools that are geared for technical, rather than artistic, work. The Image editing plugins are updated and expanded to fit more varied workflow choices and software. So the edits are nondestructive, but only for the most recent application you've used. New York, There was a problem. Perspective Efex is the all-new plug-in for the Nik Collection 3, though DxO fans may notice some elements carried over from DxO ViewPoint, the standalone companion to DxO PhotoLab, and the short-lived DxO Perspective app for Mac. On my laptop, macOS doesn't yell at me about potential issues with future operating systems when launching the software, as it did with the 32-bit edition released by Google. Our understanding is that the host software treats the multipage TIFF like any other. HDR Efex Pro is effective both at merging bracketed exposures or applying tonemapping and HDR effects to single images, so it works equally well as a plug-in and as a standalone HDR program.. Viveza's appeal is more limited in that it's designed solely to leverage the Nik Collections control point adjustment technology, but it can still be really effective. A Raw processing application is going to be the backbone of your workflow. DxO launches Nik Collection 3 The latest update to the Nik Collection suite of plug-ins adds perspective correction and improved interaction with Adobe software. If you then re-open the same TIFF in the same plug-in, you'll be able to see and change any or all of the settings and re-save it. It's not one big piece of software, but rather a suite of distinct plug-ins, which work with a workflow application as a host. 0 Comments . Viveza. There are now eight plug-ins in the collection, though they are not all creative tools and not all equally useful, to be fair. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, ... DxO has updated Nik's marquee product and has continued to update it—the current edition is the Nik Collection 3 by DxO ($149). DxO has updated Nik's marquee product and has continued to update it—the current edition is the Nik Collection 3 by DxO ($149). The best mirrorless camera in 2021 for beginners, vloggers, enthusiasts and pros, The best camera for streaming on Twitch, Mixer and Facebook Live, The best instant cameras in 2021 – from best instax to best Polaroid cameras. There may be shots where you're not happy with simple Raw processing to expand dynamic range. You can also control the intensity of the blur effect and reposition it, or simulate the blur effects of various aperture shapes. Lightroom corrects the same photo with its Upright tool, without the need to send the photo to another application. You don't have to do anything different with your host software, but if you click the small 'Save and edit later' checkbox circled here in the bottom right corner, the plug-in will save a multi-page TIFF containing the original image, the processed image and the processing instructions you applied. Take a look at the unprocessed Raw image shot with the Fujifilm GFX100S, a tough scene with the rising sun pointing directly into the lens, and a lot of detail in shadow. Nik Collection 3.3: 4: Help needed please and Happy Thanksgiving! The Nik Collection plug-ins, like plug-ins generally, are 'destructive'. DxO added En Vogue presets and new film looks in the previous version, but it's DxO Nik Collection 3 that has had the biggest update, with a whole new plug-in to take the number up to eight. Close to a dozen have been added for this release, including a couple Polaroid looks, Fuji Neopan, and Ilford Pan. Besides, the potential audience for the Nik Collection includes Lightroom users, Photoshop users and others besides, who probably didn't need or want PhotoLab Essential. A suite of creative tools for photographers, including the gold standard app for black-and-white conversion. Keith looks at the changes to what have been staples of his image editing workflow since the original Nik plugins. In this new version, you can not only launch your favorite filters but also replicate your last edit and directly apply your “Recipes” (Presets). What is the Nik Collection 3? Obviously there no upgrade offer from this version (I think it was free then). As well as a non-destructive workflow and a new plug-in, DxO Nik Collection 3 brings a new Selective Tool panel for Photoshop, with fast access to both the Nik plug-ins and your favorite tools and presets. The technical applications are not the reason to buy the Nik Collection. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. You can see the end results above. © The brilliant Nik Selective Tool is your quick and easy route to accessing the complete suite of Nik Collection 3, right from inside Adobe Photoshop. Analog Efex Pro is one of the most spectacular. As with color looks, there are black-and-white presets available for Lightroom. I've been clinging to the free version Google released a few years back, stashing the installer on various drives and laptops, lest I ever lose track of it and access to my beloved Silver Efex Pro. I think I'd rather add texture with a Photo Plate, a digital tool that mimics the look of 19th century wet plate photography. There's a benefit here—you can work on a single image across multiple editing sessions, delivering a bit more creative freedom. There are also a number of film stocks to emulate based on Agfa, Fujifilm, Ilford, and Kodak black-and-white films. But pros, artists, and serious enthusiasts take the time to capture images in Raw format and process them using all sorts of software tools. It can merge a series of bracketed exposures or create a tone mapped HDR image from a single photo, and it has a wide selection of preset HDR effects to choose from. Once you've done this, you can't go back—you'll need to open up a fresh copy of the picture to step through any changes. The Nik Collection 3 By DxO is the first suite of creative photo plugins to introduce a non-destructive workflow to Adobe Lightroom Classic, resulting in unparalleled versatility. Between all the plugins, you can perform tasks such as preset application, localized editing, black and white conversions, noise reduction, sharpening, film emulation, HDR creation and perspective adjustments. PhotoLab no longer comes with the Nik Collection 3. It comes in handy for shots like the one above, where the camera was angled up to get the tops of buildings in frame. You get Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Dfine, HDR Efex Pro, Perspective Efex, Silver Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro, and Viveza. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. He studied at RPI and worked on the retail side of the industry at B&H before landing at PCMag. Capture One's black-and-white toolset is a little bit stronger than Adobe's, with a number of different styles for its grain. The new Perspective Efex plug-in is a really welcome addition, and while you no longer get PhotoLab Essential included, the purchase options are a lot simpler now. The real bones of the Collection are the standalone plug-in applications. Nik Software started, in 1995, the adventure that would become a series of plugins praised by photographers everywhere. The folks at DxO just released their second major upgrade to the popular Nik Collection of plug-ins for Photoshop. DxO Photo Lab Essential is included, but it's not the most popular option. Color Efex Pro is equally powerful, but perhaps comes across as a bit of a jack of all trades that’s overshadowed by the other plug-ins. Nik Collection 3 Review. Photographers use a multitude of tools to make images. It's the ability to stack the filters together that gives some appeal to Color Efex Pro. It … 1 On the technical side, it offers single-click correction for lens and perspective distortion. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. You'll need to round-trip rendered files from your host application to the plug-in, and for the best quality that means rendering a 16-bit TIFF for editing. Perspective Efex makes it a simple matter to add this effect to any shot. HDR Efex Pro is good too. Please refresh the page and try again. Aside from the new app, Perspective Efex, the big addition here is a nondestructive editing workflow. DxO outlines the full system requirements here. From here on out, I'll talk about using the software with Adobe, but mechanics aside, the experience is similar with Photo Lab or Capture One as your launcher. without losing the original Nik functionality. The price hasn't changed, but there is a new plug-in to make up for that and the purchase options are now a lot simpler than they were before. If you want to take advantage of the nondestructive features offered by Nik, the TIFF includes two versions of the image—the original and the edited version. You won’t here – once you start dabbling in the four main Nik Collection plug-ins, the minutes and then the hours just fly by. You get Analog Efex for unique toy camera, motion, and other filters; Color Efex has a number of filter looks, both color and black-and-white; Silver Efex is able to mimic the look and feel of many classic emulsions, including Kodak Tri-X and Ilford Delta; and Perspective Efex is a new addition that can make technical adjustments to correct geometry, and also provide an artistic miniature effect. • The best photo-editing software you can buy today It's not an everyday tool—for me, at least—but it is a beneficial one. When he’s not out with his camera, Jim enjoys watching bad and good television, playing video games (poorly), and reading. While I'm typically happy with what they bring to the table for color work, I've yet to find any that match Silver Efex for monochrome conversions. Lightroom and Capture One both offer all of these functions, without the need to render out a TIF to edit in Nik. Of course, the software can't load a Raw format image, so your original files remain untouched. Dfine is a noise reduction tool that works well enough, but most photographers will concentrate on applying noise reduction at the raw processing stage, not on already-processed images. If you're a fan of filters, Color Efex Pro will make you happy. The DXO NIK Collection is a popular image editing suite and I have used it for years. Results show up on the screen immediately, giving you a bit of freedom to fine-tune the effect to your liking. If you don't subscribe to Adobe or have a Capture One License, DxO includes the scaled-back Essential edition of its Raw conversion suite, DxO PhotoLab. Overall, the process is just a little more cumbersome than working with an image directly in Lightroom. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. I am using Nik Collection in a version from 2016 (when it still was a Google company). For most photographers, that's Lightroom or Capture One, for which the Nik Collection works fine as an external editor. Skylum’s Aurora HDR is better still, but costs almost as much as the entire Nik Collection, so for occasional HDR experimenters, HDR Efex Pro is more than adequate. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. View all comments. It recaptures the depth, intensity and subtlety of black and white films and darkroom processes in a way that other programs and plug-ins struggle to match. DxO has updated Nik's marquee product and has continued to update it—the current edition is the Nik Collection 3 by DxO ($149). You can find him on Instagram @jamespfisher, How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, Adobe Launches Lightroom for ARM-Based Macs and PCs, Google Photos May Lock Some Editing Options Behind Subscription, Adobe Launches Illustrator for iPad, Photoshop AI Tools to Fight Deepfakes, Tamron 70-300mm F4.5-6.3 Di III RXD Review, Voigtlander Nokton 21mm F1.4 Aspherical Review. You get Dfine for noise reduction, Sharpener Pro to enhance detail, and Viveza for color manipulation. I sent the 16-bit TIFF, created by Lightroom from Raw, into HDR Efex Pro and was able to cycle through many different starter looks for the finished shot. Thus, I had to pay the full price. I tested DxO with both Lightroom Classic and Capture One 12, but spent the most time with it along with Lightroom. Are they actually better, and which one is best? It has a number of presets to help get you started, as well as slider adjustments to control the intensity of the effect. It also offers a nondestructive workflow for Adobe Lightroom Classic users. Some of the functions, like adding a graduated neutral density filter, grain, or split-tone effects, are almost certainly included in your Raw converter. They aren't strenuous, so if you have a workstation that's capable of processing digital image files, you should be set. The new non-destructive workflow system works with Lightroom and any other program which can use the Nik software for external editing, and it's very clever, even if the files are quite big. Including Photo Lab allows DxO to advertise the Nik Collection as having Raw support, but the really compelling applications don't work with Raw. To edit images at the best quality, you'll need to export a 16-bit TIFF file from Lightroom, a format that's much bigger in size than Raw formats. For a little bit more money than the Nik Collection, RNI All Films 5 gives you tons of film looks that can be applied with a single click from within your workflow application—no round-tripping required. Analog Efex also has has some interesting motion blur options, with drag-and-drop control over the locus and direction of the blur via Nik's U Point system. The structure slider adjusts the intensity—increasing it emulates the grain you'll get when push processing, and you can control contrast as well. Each application is geared to a very specific purpose, and we'll break them down one by one. There are almost 200 effects and filters including retouching tools. The Nik Collection 3 is now a set of eight plug-ins. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/nik-collection-by-dxo, Includes color, black-and-white, HDR, and sharpening tools, Perspective Efex includes miniature effect filter, Integrates with Adobe and Capture One workflow, Supports latest operating systems and displays, Underwhelming nondestructive workflow support, Film looks are available in competing software, Jim Fisher is our lead analyst for cameras, drones, and digital imaging. With the nondestructive edits enabled, I was able to go back and make changes after the fact with ease. It recreates the look of old and vintage analog cameras, not just with different ‘film’ types, grain, fade effects and light leaks, but with glass plate effects, lens distortions a blurring, multiple exposures, bokeh effects and more. Nik Collection 3 by DxO is a major upgrade to the famous plugin suite for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and DxO PhotoLab. DxO has updated Nik's marquee product and has continued to update it—the current edition is the Nik Collection 3 by DxO ($149). It's been around a long time—I've personally been using it for a decade—and has changed ownership (and pricing) a few times over the years. During all that time, most of the plug-ins have hardly changed at all. Of course, HDR fans are used to taking multiple shots with varying levels of brightness. The Nik Collection Selective tool 2included in Nik Collection 3 by DxO is optimized vs. the old Nik Collection Selective tool included in Google’s Nik Collection. It's not quite as convenient as Raw processing, and using it will eat up some space on your scratch drive, but you may find it worthwhile to have the option to go back and make edits to an image. It looks like bundling DxO PhotoLab with Nik Collection 2 was a short-lived experiment that added value to the software but led to complicated upgrade routes and frustration for existing DxO PhotoLab users who weren't offered any price reduction despite having a key part of the software already. Creatives photographers will find another use for Perspective Efex—the miniature effect. I purchased Collection 2 just a couple weeks before their cut-off date for free upgrade, and they are completely unwilling to make an exception--even though the price of Collection 3 is $50 less than what I paid for Collection 2. The DxO Nik Collection 3 is the latest version of a plug-in suite first developed by Nik Software, bought by Google and then rescued from potential obscurity by DxO. Comprising more than 200 special effect plug-ins, the Nik Collection has been popular with photographers for … Indeed, the DxO Nik Collection is cheaper in DxO's hands than it's ever been as a commercial package before. But I find myself not liking the Dust and Lint options for this image. Analog Efex Pro is a virtual Swiss Army knife of film and motion effects, which can be used to build presets, called Cameras in the app. Here’s the rundown on what’s new in version 2.5 of this handy photo editing software. If you're used to workflow applications like Lightroom Classic and Capture One Pro, you'll be a little surprised by how the Nik Collection is delivered. Other updates are modest—there are new presets available for some apps, new film stock emulations for Silver Efex and Color Efex, and other minor changes throughout. But once I loaded the same file into Color Efex Pro and added a Bleach Bypass effect, I lost the ability to undo edits made in Analog Efex. You can make pin-point color changes in the image, and also work on global adjustments. That's where HDR Efex Pro comes into play. The Nik Collection just keeps on getting better! These are the Big Four creative plug-ins in the Nik Collection, and this is where you’ll find the 42 new “En Vogue” presets introduced in version 2. Six were originally developed by Nik Software and sold individually, then bought by Google and sold as a single suite, then discontinued and given away free, and finally rescued by DxO and relaunched as a commercial package. Connect with PhotoJoseph Website YouTube Facebook. Is the hassle worth it? It's a little limited in that it doesn't translate from one app in the suite to another. Color Efex Pro’s potential is not as immediately obvious as that of the other key plug-ins, but actually runs just as deep, or deeper. There is a downside – these TIFFs are double the size of the regular sort, so this will work better with desktop storage than cloud-based storage. DxO has revived the software, updating it for 64-bit operating systems, and offering other improvements. Get the best camera deals, reviews, product advice, competitions, unmissable photography news and more! HDR images can look unnatural if processed too aggressively, and while HDR Efex Pro certainly gives you the tools to craft photos with very high sharpening and localized contrast, the built-in presets trend toward more realistic looks. For most images, I'm typically happy with Lightroom's ability to eke the right amount of dynamic range from a photo. Since then they’ve worked to integrate it with their own DXO Photo Lab 3, which is a great RAW image processor, and have improved its compatibility with Lightroom and even Affinity Photo.. And, last but not least, the suite now has a perspective plug-in, Perspective Efex. The next two, Dfine and Sharpener Pro, feel increasingly irrelevant in the modern age. And it does a great job giving a film look to color images as well. DxO includes twenty of its own, which can give you a starting point with your images. They also include some of the best creative tools and presets available to photographers. The off-kilter perspective creates a keystone distortion effect. I'm happy to see that DxO has kept the Nik Collection alive. We're happy to see some level of nondestructive editing added to this version. Your subscription has been confirmed. In fact, they still rate as amongst the best photo-editing software applications you can get. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer, (Image: © Rod Lawton/Digital Camera World). Do I need a professional camera? The application works well, though its main function may already be covered by your Raw converter. In this video I go over the features of the new Nik Collection 3 by DXO to help you figure out if this product is right for you. Other new stocks include Fujifilm Instax, FP100C, and Provia 400X, and old favorites like Kodachrome, Portra, and Superia are still included. If you're thinking about buying the Nik Collection, it's probably for one of the creative applications. Learn how your comment data is processed. Where Optics Pro was simply a RAW processing and lens correction tool, PhotoLab adds local adjustments to … The Nik Collection 3 review finds that the next three plugins are part of a standard set of older editions but aren’t relevant in today’s times. © 1996-2021 Ziff Davis, LLC. It's easy to toggle the effects of any with a simple checkbox, so you can play with combinations and save your own presets, called Recipes. DxO Nik Collection 3 is the company's biggest update yet to the Nik plug-in suite. Have you ever felt jaded and bored by the effects in your current photo editing software? Thank you for signing up to Digital Camera World. The Nik Collection 3 was launched early this morning and is available to purchase right away for a “special introductory price” of $100 for new users, or $60 for upgrades. But let's not forget that the original Nik Collection (as published by Nik Software) originally cost hundreds of dollars, and that when Google took it over it initially charged more than DxO does now. In addition to different color responses, the software emulates the unique grain pattern of each film. I'm more excited to see a level of nondestructive editing and new film simulations added to Color and Silver Efex. The filter list is extensive, and the software allows you to stack as many filters onto one image as you want. The fact is, the Nik Collection is such an important, powerful, wide-ranging and inspiring suite of creative tools that we can recommend it unreservedly. And while Sharpener Pro can be useful for optimising images for specific print sizes and printing devices, its ‘capture sharpening’ options are no more effective than the sharpening tools in any image editor – including DxO PhotoLab. These functions aren't exclusive to Nik. A camera and lens are the very basic necessities. Nik Collection 3 by DxO Review. Visit our corporate site. PCMag Digital Group. Take the 365 photo challenge! You will receive a verification email shortly. Likewise, if you just want to give images a film-like look, there are dozens of preset packs available for Lightroom and Capture One. Viveza is really a showcase for Nik’s control point adjustments and this is all it does – you can think of it as like a dodging and burning tool, but for color images rather than black and white. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 Review {} [+] {} [+] This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. 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