Nik Collection 6

With eight premium plug-ins and hundreds of filters, effects and presets, the latest Nik collection is a gateway to a world of creativity, as Will Cheung discovers

- Will Cheung

DXO Labs is renowned for its optical correction modules, with over 80,000 camera/lens combinations in its database. But it also has an impressive software portfolio: PhotoLab, a capable editing app; PureRaw, a cutting-edge denoising program for camera raw files; and the Nik Collection, a suite of powerful creative and technical apps.

DxO acquired the Nik Collection from Google in 2017. But its history goes back further to 2009, when software firm Nik bundled its imaging plug-ins Dfine, Viveza, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro into a single suite. The Ultimate Edition of these apps sold for $599.95. Google bought Nik Software in 2012, and the Google Nik Collection was marketed for a more affordable $149. It was made even more accessible in 2016 when Google offered the whole package as a free download, and not surprisingly its popularity soared. This was fuelled by the fact that the plug-ins were really very good, with Silver Efex Pro being the standout performer with its superb black & white conversion skills and an extensive bank of legacy film profiles.

When DxO acquired the portfolio, it was put on sale as the Nik Collection 2018. For $69/£59 you got seven plug-ins: Analog Efex Pro 2, Color Efex Pro 4, Dfine 2, HDR Efex Pro 2, Sharpener Pro 3, Silver Efex Pro 2 and Viveza 2. Since then, we've seen DxO apply its development skills and each update has brought significant improvements and workflow tweaks. In 2020's Nik Collection 3, the headline was the addition of Perspective Efex; the following year in Collection 4 we saw updates to Viveza and Silver Efex; and in 2022, Color Efex and Analog Efex were redesigned for Collection 5.