Regular readers will know we are big fans of the Nik Collection from DXO, a powerful yet easy to use collection of presets, filters and editing tools. The software works fine as a standalone package, but to get the full benefit, it is best to use it as a series of plug-ins with popular raw-processing programs such as Adobe Lightroom Classic or Photoshop.
It is more accurate to describe it as a full creative suite, and although some of the constituent parts are better than others, the Nik Collection is excellent value for money. Even more so if you buy the suite before June 30th, as you can get a hefty 30% off the price. So you can get the full package as a new customer for £86.99, with upgrade discounts too.
To recap, the Nik collection consists of SilverEfex Pro, for black and white conversion; AnalogEfex Pro for adding vintage/analogue film effects; ColorEfex Pro, for tweaking colours and adding creative filters; Dfine, for reducing noise; HDREfex Pro, for HDR effects; Sharpener Pro, for sharpening; Viveza, for fine tuning colour and tone; and the new Perspective Efex, for correcting converging verticals, making other geometric corrections and adding miniature or fish-eye effects.
Perspective Efex is new to version 3 and is remarkably powerful. It makes fixing converging verticals really easy (where the edges of buildings lean in) as well as sorting out common types of lens distortion – useful when shooting landscapes with wide-angle lenses.
The miniature tool works very well too, as you can see above, and although the fisheye effect is more fussy, requiring the right kind of image, it is still great fun to play with. Silver Efex Pro, meanwhile, remains the gold-standard for quick and straightforward black and white conversion, and the new En Vogue filters in ColorEfex Pro and AnalogEfex Pro are impressive too.
The software works with both MacOS and Windows and you can read more here.
