DXO NIK COLLECTION 7

The best photo-editing plug-in suite just got better

- Rod Lawton

nikcollection.dxo.​com £145/$159 (new); £79/$89 (upgrade from version 6)

The DxO Nik Collection consists of seven different plug-ins, five of which offer creative inspiration and effects, with two ‘corrective’ image enhancement tools. These plug-ins can be used from within Lightroom Classic, Adobe Photoshop, Capture One, DxO PhotoLab and Affinity Photo, but also as standalone apps.

Nik Collection has long been one of the best photo-editing software suites on the market, so what do you get? The creative plug-ins comprise Nik Color Efex, Silver Efex, Analog Efex, Viveza and HDR Efex, with each one aimed at a particular style or genre of photography. Color Efex is the principal photo-editing tool, offering the ability to apply over 50 different filter effects, combine them as presets, and mask each one with DxO’s fast and effective control point adjustments.

Color Efex 7 gets the majority of updates in this version, with new preset options, ‘dynamic’ filters, improved HSL controls, grain effects and DxO’s contrast-boosting ClearView effect. It takes three new filters from the Viveza plug-in to extend its potential. Other plug-ins benefit from new control point options, including the ability to reshape circular control points as ellipses and a new polygonal control point tool.

Nik Silver Efex 7 specialises in black-and-white treatments, with tools to reproduce the analogue era, while Analog Efex 7 replicates old-photo looks, adding double exposure, lens blur and bokeh effects. HDR Efex 7 is a tool for merging bracketed images into HDR composites with a range of presets, and Viveza is for colour control using global adjustments and DxO control points.