DxO Nik Collection 6 announced: local adjustments improved, new features

There are no new plug-ins in the Nik Collection 6 this time around, but significant feature additions to some and improved local adjustment tools across the board.

The Nik Collection has been one of the best, and best-known plug-in suites for years, and works perfectly alongside Photoshop and Lightroom Classic (Lightroom, the web version, does not support plug-ins directly) and indeed as an external editing tool for programs like Capture One, Affinity Photo and even DxO’s own PhotoLab application.

DxO’s Control Lines have been added to the Nik Collection for the first time, having previously been introduced in DxO PhotoLab. They are like a cross between a gradient mask and an eyedropper tool that selects and masks the tones that you want the gradient to target. You could use them to darken bright skies, for example, while excluding foreground objects that might otherwise be darkened by the gradient.

The regular U-point adjustments have been improved too. With Control Point diffusion, you have more control over the strength and style of adjustments, and it will now be possible to invert Control Point and Control Line masks. There are Color Selectivity sliders for more precise masking and, perhaps best of all, local adjustments can now be saved within presets.

In the past, U-point adjustments had pop-out adjustment sliders and then DxO shifted the U-point controls to the sidebar to keep the image clear. Here, though, they can get tangled up with the regular global adjustment tools, so in Nik Collection 6, DxO offers users a choice between these two adjustment tool modes – overlaid on the image or in the sidebar.

Other enhancements include the ability to recall any of your last 15 edits and apply them with a single click, a preset search feature (based on preset names), and sundry enhancements to individual plug-ins.

Color Efex Pro gets a new filter for Hue, Saturation and Lightness adjustments, Dfine and Sharpener Pro get a visual overhaul to follow via a future update, and in August 2023 HDR Efex Pro will get a new, cleaner workflow, again via a free update. The Perspective Efex plug-in now has a ReShape tool.

Here’s the full list of Nik Collection 6 plug-ins:

• Analog Efex Pro
• Color Efex Pro
• Dfine
• HDR Efex Pro
• Perspective Efex
• Sharpener Pro
• Silver Efex Pro
• Viveza

DxO Nik Collection 6 is available now for $149/£135, with an upgrade price of $79/£69 for existing Nik Collection 4 or 5 users.

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