Nik Collection is a great suite of tools to give your photographs a unique touch by applying filters and effects with personality. Six applications offer you different features that together will make your images look practically professional.
This tool consists of an array of plugins you can use from Adobe Photoshop’s filters tab. Nik Collection has eight independent modes among which you can find many different effects.
The first block, Analog Efex Pro, comes with nine
filters to give your pictures the look and feel of a classic camera. All you have to do is click on them and they'll be applied to your image, although you can also add 'scratches and dirt', cartoon, and movie filters to make your pictures look properly old school.
Color Efex Pro is the second tool in this pack, offering up to 55 different effects to set control points and highlight the different elements that compose the photo. Dfine lets you adjust the contrast and reduce color noise separately, thus improving the photo quality so you don’t notice the grain.
HDR Efex Pro lets you create HDR photos combining the different features of this effect and modifying the tone, tone compression, and color. This option recovers any lost highlights, reduces shadows, and adjusts tonality to achieve the perfect level of naturalness and balance. With Sharpener Pro you can selectively improve your image's sharpness by applying control points to focus on.
Silver Efex Pro contains a total of 38 black and white or sepia effects that help you achieve a modern or classic look, depending on your needs. Finally, the last option in Nik Collection is Viveza, a feature to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, and RGB hues to control the picture’s warmth and get a more intense look.
This tool consists of an array of plugins you can use from Adobe Photoshop’s filters tab. Nik Collection has eight independent modes among which you can find many different effects.
The first block, Analog Efex Pro, comes with nine
filters to give your pictures the look and feel of a classic camera. All you have to do is click on them and they'll be applied to your image, although you can also add 'scratches and dirt', cartoon, and movie filters to make your pictures look properly old school.
Color Efex Pro is the second tool in this pack, offering up to 55 different effects to set control points and highlight the different elements that compose the photo. Dfine lets you adjust the contrast and reduce color noise separately, thus improving the photo quality so you don’t notice the grain.
HDR Efex Pro lets you create HDR photos combining the different features of this effect and modifying the tone, tone compression, and color. This option recovers any lost highlights, reduces shadows, and adjusts tonality to achieve the perfect level of naturalness and balance. With Sharpener Pro you can selectively improve your image's sharpness by applying control points to focus on.
Silver Efex Pro contains a total of 38 black and white or sepia effects that help you achieve a modern or classic look, depending on your needs. Finally, the last option in Nik Collection is Viveza, a feature to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, and RGB hues to control the picture’s warmth and get a more intense look.
Nik Collection was created in 1995 as an independent studio specialized in creating filters and effects for digital photography. They’re also the founders of Snapseed. After being acquired by Google in 2012, Nik Collection‘s image filters are now available as a complete set of plug-ins for Photoshop and other Adobe products that you can use to apply all kinds of professional effects to your images for free.
These plug-ins are compatible with both Windows (from Vista) as well as OS X (from version 10.7 on) in different incarnations of Adobe products, mainly:
- Adobe Photoshop from version CS4 to CC 2015.
- Adobe Photoshop Elements from version 9 to 13.
- Adobe Lightroom from version 3 to 6/CC
- (Only for Macs) Apple Aperture 3.1 or higher.
This extensive range of plugins offers different types of effects that are all neatly organized in categories. These include filters that do all kinds of things from sharpening to obtain a clearer, more crisp image all the way to controls simulating classical analog camera film processing features. Installing them is easy, all you have to do is download and run the install file for Nik Software pack, during the process a list of compatible Adobe products will appear, so you can choose the ones you want. When you open the tool you’ve chosen to install the plug-in on, you’ll be able to choose any of the filters from a new toolbar that will appear within the program. After you install the set of plug-ins onto Photoshop, you’ll find the new effects in your usual collapsible toolbar that will now give you even more filter options for your photos.
Windows:
- Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Windows 8
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 through CC 2015
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC
Mac:
- Mac® OS X 10.7.5 through 10.10
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 (CS5 for HDR Efex Pro 2) through CC 2015
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC
- Apple® Aperture® 3.1 or later
More information | Official Website
