Life after Photoshop

The Detail Extractor in Analog Efex Pro is like a magic bullet for contrast issues

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Here’s a before and after showing the original image (left) and the edited version after using the Analog Efex Pro Detail Extractor.

It’s often difficult to know the best way to handle images with a high brightness range, especially in outdoor photography under bright skies. One solution is a graduated filter, which isn’t always practical, another is HDR software, which seems like an extreme solution to a simple problem. Here’s a third.

Analog Efex Pro, part of the DxO Nik Collection has an excellent tool that’s easily missed but lies at the heart of many of this software’s striking analog film effects.

It’s called the Detail Extractor, and it’s a single slider within Analog Efex Pro’s Basic Adjustments panel. The presets in Analog Efex Pro use this panel and others to create their ‘looks’, but it is possible to use the Basic Adjustments panel on its own. For this, you need to swap from the camera categories in the drop-down presets menu, top left, and choose Camera Kit.

Here are some instructions on how to use the Analog Efex Pro Camera Kit from version 1 of the software. The tools and options have increased since then, but the principle is the same. If this is your first time with this software, see this guide on how to get started with Analog Efex Pro.

TIP: 16-bit TIFFs

When you use Analog Efex Pro or other plug-ins from within your host software, you’ll be given a choice of file formats, e.g. JPEG, 8-bit TIFF or 16-bit TIFF. 16-bit TIFF files are larger than the rest but highly recommended for this kind of work because they retain much finer tonal subtlety than JPEGs or 8-bit TIFFs and will produce much better results with heavy tonal adjustments.

How to use the Analog Efex Pro Detail Extractor

Analog Efex Pro Detail Extractor

When you use the Camera Kit, you choose the panels you want to see by selecting them from the list in the left sidebar. I’ve selected only the Basic Adjustments tool in this list, so that’s the only toolbar showing in the right sidebar.

There’s almost nothing to know about the Detail Extractor slider. It has two actions, which increase in strength as you push the slider. It has the effect of bringing up shadow detail while bringing back highlights – exactly why you might try to achieve with HDR software – but it does it in a very naturalistic way. However, you should watch out for edge halos around hard object edges against bright skies (circled in this screenshot).

The Detail Extractor slider also has the effect of increasing local contrast and clarity, to give images a much grittier, more textured appearance. This really useful for images which look just a little flat and lifeless.

These two effects work in unison, you can’t control them individually, so you have to judge just how far to push the Detail Extractor slider. But there are two ways to adjust the result – you can use the Brightness, Contrast and Saturation sliders to adjust the image’s overall appearance, and you can use Control Points to change the effect in different areas.

Once you’ve got the image looking how you want it to, you can save it back to your host software or take it further by adding other tools and effects from the Camera Kit list in the left sidebar.

Other things to try

• Get an HDR effect from a single image in Color Efex Pro

Color Efex Pro is another of the plug-ins in the DxO Nik Collection. It has a large collection of photographic filters and effects which can be combined into ‘recipes’.

• The DxO Nik Collection 3 non-destructive workflow and how it works

This is a new feature in the DxO Nik Collection 3 release, which lets you return to your editing steps in the Nik Collection plug-ins, even after you’ve saved and closed the image. Here’s how it works.