Verdict: 5 stars Analog Efex Pro 3 is a new and revamped version of the analog effects plug-in in the DxO Nik Collection. It goes way beyond most analog photography tools, offering not just film styles, grain effects and borders, but creative vignetting, bokeh, lens blur, lens distortion, double-exposures, motion blur and more to simulate a huge variety of ‘old camera’ looks. There are other good vintage/analog tools out there, but none that go as far as Analog Efex Pro, and version 3, introduced with Nik Collection 5, is streamlined, updated and even better.
Tilt shift effect
Tilt shift lenses, or 'perspective control' lenses, have built-in lens movements which let you shift the lens up, down or sideways relative to the camera, or tilt it at an angle. The shift movement is good for correcting converging verticals in architectural shots, while the tilt movement has traditionally been used for depth of field control in studio photography.
This tilt movement works by aligning the camera's plane of focus with the subject's, but you can adjust the tilt the other way and dramatically reduce the depth of field, even with subjects some distance away from the camera.
This effect has been made popular by Lensbaby and its deliberately lo-fi lenses, where you can freely adjust the tilt of the lens.
It's also possible to recreate this effect digitally using 'tilt shift' filters. The effect is not quite the same since tilt lenses are acting on objects in 3D space while tilt shift filters are working on a 2D image, but the results can still be convincing and interesting enough to be worthwhile.
Perspective Efex review
Verdict: 4.5 stars Perspective Efex is a really nice addition to the DxO Nik Collection 3. It offers geometric perspective, distortion and tilt-shift corrections in a simple, user-friendly interface.
Create a tilt-shift effect with Snapseed
Tilt-shift effects depend on two things – an understanding of how the illusion is created and the right kind of subject. The illusion is caused by a defocusing effect before and behind the subject. This is what we’re used to seeing in close-up photography, where the depth of field is limited and only a narrow […]