Verdict: 4.5 stars DxO Nik Collection 4 is the latest version of an evergreen plug-in suite that’s as good today as ever. There are improvements, but the new look for Silver Efex Pro and Viveza put them a little out of step with the rest.
Analog
A term now used to design old-fashioned chemical processes to capture images rather than digital – so you can get ‘analog’ cameras, ‘analog’ films and ‘analog’ image effects which replicate the look of these old processes.
Silver Efex Pro 3 review
Verdict: 4.5 stars For fans of black and white photography, Silver Efex Pro is just superb. Version 3 improves the Control Point masking, but moves the sliders to the sidebar, which isn’t necessarily an improvement.
Exposure X6 review
Verdict: 4.5 stars Exposure X6 remains one of the best tools for recreating atmospheric analog looks and has a large catalog of very good preset effects. It’s also a very good all-round non-destructive image-editor, and offers very good integrated image cataloguing which offers an excellent hybrid approach between ‘live’ folder browsing and quite powerful search and album tools.
Analog Efex Pro 2 review
Verdict: 5 stars Analog Efex Pro2 goes way beyond most analog photography filters, offering not just film styles, grain effects and borders, but creative vignetting, bokeh, lens blur, lens distortion, double-exposures, motion blur and more.
How to get started with Analog Efex Pro
Analog Efex Pro is one of the plug-ins in the Nik Collection. It works as a plug in with Lightroom Classic and Photoshop but it can also work as a standalone program or as an external editor with all sorts of other programs like Capture One, Exposure X and more. It’s designed to recreate the […]
Picture styles and film simulation with digital cameras
Digital cameras typically offer a range of ‘picture styles’ to suit different subjects or different tastes in color rendition. Canon calls these Picture Styles, Nikon calls them Picture Controls and other camera makers have their own names.
How to get great black and white in DxO PhotoLab… but you’ll need FilmPack 5
DxO PhotoLab can create superb black and white imagery, both in terms of image quality and in creative control, but you need to get the DxO FilmPack 5 Elite add-on to do it. This does make things more expensive, and it does feel a bit like you’re paying for some things that other programs offer […]
Capture One 12 Fujifilm Film Simulations: how they work
Is Capture One now the best RAW converter of all for Fujifilm owners? Phase One has added support for the Fujifilm GFX, launched a new, free Capture One Express Fujifilm app, and Capture One 12 now adds Fujifilm Film Simulation modes.
Add zoom blur with a twist
Zoom blur is a popular bit tricky little technique where you zoom the lens during the exposure so that you get a kind of radial blur from the centre of the picture. This means using a shutter speed long enough to capture this rapid zoom movement, which usually means you get plenty of regular blur […]
How to add age and drama with texture effects
Digital images don’t have much texture. Your subjects might, of course, but the way cameras render tones is glassy-smooth (at low ISO settings anyway) and sometimes a little sterile. Adding a texture digitally can make a picture look more interesting, more tactile and more ‘hand made’. Textures can be very subtle, like the fine texture […]