DxO has just released the brand new Nik Collection 5. It’s been more than a year since the last major upgrade and this version of the renowned suite of eight plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic includes major upgrades to Color Efex and Analog Efex, a brand new tool to reduce haze, improved local adjustment tools, a smoother user experience and 29 faithfully reproduced color film grains.

More than 300 presets can be used to give instant results, and the intuitive sliders and U-Point technology for local adjustments bring endless creative opportunities and the ability to refine every detail.

The eight plug-ins can also function as standalone apps, meaning you don’t need to subscribe to Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

Color Efex Pro 5
A glance at the new and improved Color Efex Pro 5 interface

Revamped User Interface for a More Refined Editing Experience

The Nik Color Efex and Nik Analog Efex interfaces have been rebuilt from the ground up, bringing them into line with the recently updated Nik Silver Efex and Nik Viveza.

Nik Color Efex is a powerful means of enhancing and manipulating color and continues to be Nik Collection users’ most popular plug-in (especially by landscape photographers), while Nik Analog Efex is unique in its potential to recreate vintage photographic effects.

Thanks to the newly refined and functional user experience in both of these plug-ins, presets are now more accessible with improved options for saving and editing favorite settings.

Nik Collection 5

Better Local Adjustments Thanks to U Pointâ„¢ Technology.

U Pointâ„¢ technology, the pioneering local adjustment tools that make targeted changes feel intuitive and efficient without using masks, continues to evolve in Nik Color Efex and Nik Analog Efex.

Control Points can now be renamed which makes them easier to manage. You can also save them as part of a preset to speed up your workflows.

The addition of two Color Selectivity sliders — Luminance and Chrominance — gives you greater control over the impact of local adjustments. The interface has also been updated so that creating and editing a Control Point is a clean and distraction-free experience.

New Tool to Remove Haze plus 29 Authentic Color Film Grains

Haze in photographs is simple to remove when using Nik Color Efex thanks to the addition of ClearView, a technology borrowed from DxO PhotoLab 5.

Fog, mist, smoke, and pollution are intelligently reduced using a simple slider, returning contrast and color to photographs.

Color Efex also benefits from 29 new, authentic color film grains created in DxO’s purpose-built laboratories, giving analog era enthusiasts a host of new creative options.

Nik Perspective Efex Adds More Than 4,300 New Camera and Lens Combinations

Nik Perspective Efex benefits from the ongoing research conducted in DxO’s exclusive labs with more than 20 new cameras and 60 lenses added to its database of supported equipment. The plug-in can now automatically correct the geometric distortions of more than 70,000 camera and lens combinations.

DxO PhotoLab 5 ESSENTIAL

Those shooting RAW get to experience the power of DxO PhotoLab 5 ESSENTIAL, the feature-rich photo-editing software that contains DxO’s renowned Optics Modules and U Point™ technology for precise local adjustments.

Price and availability

Nik Collection 5 (Windows and macOS) is now available for download on the DxO website for $149. Photographers who own Nik Collection 3 or 4 can upgrade their software for $79.

Editors note: I have just purchased the upgrade myself and will be publishing a review giving further insights in the near future.