Normally, if you want to create any kind of black and white effect with the DxO Nik Collection, you’d go straight to Silver Efex Pro. However, Color Efex Pro has some black and white effects of its own. The effects are different to Silver Efex Pro’s, so although the tools aren’t quite as sophisticated, you […]
Nik Collection
The Nik Collection is an important collection of plug-ins once published by Nik Software but then taken over by Google when it bought the company. Google then made the Nik Collection free but it has now been bought for future commercial development by DxO.
See related articles below and read the full DxO Nik Collection review
Pimp your pictures with the Color Efex Pro Bi-Colour filter
Color Efex Pro‘s Bi-Colour filter adds a colour gradient to your pictures, adding a subtle wash of one colour to the base and one to the top. It’s not an effect you’ll use every day, but don’t dismiss it straight away because there is a type of shot where it really comes to life, and […]
Boost your landscapes with HDR Efex Pro
HDR Efex Pro isn’t just for special effects. It can enhance your images in much more straightforward ways, improving the tonal balance, sky detail and colour saturation. I like to use it on landscapes, where professionals can wait for hours for the right lighting, but the rest of us have to grab shots when we […]
How to apply the Zone System in Silver Efex Pro
The Zone System was invented by legendary landscape photographer Ansel Adams. He hit upon the idea of splitting the full range of tones in a black and white image into eleven distinct brightness zones, which he then went on to define very carefully. I’m paraphrasing this from the Wikipedia entry: Ansel Adams’ approach was two-fold. […]
Top tips for creating and saving Analog Efex Pro custom presets
Analog Efex Pro is one of the plug-ins in the DxO Nik Collection. It comes with a selection of preset camera and film effects to reproduce the look of traditional analog photography, but I’ve been spending some time trying them out and using the Analog Efex Pro Camera Kit (see part 2 of this Analog […]
How to use the Nik Collection Analog Efex Pro Camera Kit
Analog Efex Pro is part of the DxO Nik Collection, the set of plug-ins for Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom Classic that DxO took over from Google. I rate this as the best set of plug-ins ever made, and practically a must-have for digital image-editing fans. It’s a tool for simulating the look of old films […]
How to ‘re-light’ your shots with the Color Efex Pro Darken/Lighten Center filter
Sometimes your shots don’t quite have the lighting you wanted, even when you had the time to set up the lighting carefully, such as when you’re shooting a still life, for example. The scene looked OK when you assembled it and pressed the shutter button, but later on you look at it more carefully on […]
Create spectacular landscapes with the Color Efex Pro Infrared Film effect
Infra-red photography can produce the most amazing and surreal pictures, and if shooting with infra-red film is no longer practical, it is possible to achieve the same infra-red effect with software. The Color Efex Pro Infrared Film effect aims to reproduce the look of infrared films faithfully from regular digital images. Technically, this is not […]
Create your own films with Silver Efex Pro Sensitivity settings!
You can use Silver Efex Pro perfectly effectively by choosing a preset and then modifying the settings as necessary using the tools panel. What you may not realise is that Silver Efex Pro simulates specific film types very closely. In fact, you can choose your film manually in the Film Types panel. And if that’s […]
Give your landscapes a mystic glow with the Color Efex Pro Glamour Glow effect
The Color Efex Pro Glamour Glow effect would normally be used on portraits, but I think it works rather well on other subjects too. It adds an ethereal glow to everyday subjects, gives colours a pure, rich depth and lets you shift the colour balance too. I’m going to use it on this autumn shot […]