Aug 30

Aug 30 DXO Releases Nik Collection 6.3

DXO labs today announced the release of the latest version of its popular Nik Collection software suite. While it might sound like a point release, it actually contains some significant updates and marks a milestone for the software.

In 2017, when Google announced that it would no longer develop or support the software, it was acquired by DXO labs, and the company began a project to re-write the code from the ground up. Over the last few years, each release has added rewritten versions of the various plug-ins, and with 6.3 the modernisation is finally complete with the addition of updated versions of Sharpener and HDR Efex.

According to the company’s press release

In May 2017, Google announced it would no longer be supporting or developing the collection of plugins that were acquired from Nik Software in 2012. Justifiably, the world of photography was troubled; photographers expressed their dismay and more than 15,000 people from around the globe signed a petition calling on Google to keep Nik Collection alive.

Happily, in October 2017, Google decided to entrust Nik Collection to one of the most innovative software companies in consumer imaging: DxO Labs. Consequently, DxO was faced with a major challenge: making sense of millions of lines of code without any clear documentation. Nonetheless, having made a commitment to the photographic community to ensure the future of Nik Collection, the hard work began!

Six years later, the release of Nik Collection 6.3 marks the end of that journey. The huge task of reauthoring is complete, with every line of code rewritten for the latest technology. The suite is now fully compatible with Windows, macOS, and Apple Silicon, it works harmoniously within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic and Affinity Photo, it is faster and more reliable than ever before.

CEO of DxO Labs, Jérôme Ménière, looks forward to where Nik Collection will go next. “We are hugely proud of this achievement. With this work complete, we can now focus solely on adding exciting new features and technology. Our talented engineers are committed to making Nik Collection the indispensable creative companion to every passionate photographer’s workflow.”

The main new features for Nik Collection 6.3 are the afore mentioned versions of Sharpener and HDR Efex. Both of these tools now feature the upgraded interface from the rest of the suite, along with full support for Apple Silicon. You can now also choose where sliders for local adjustments appear on-screen: controls can be either kept in a sidebar to tidy the image area, or overlaid in the traditional style. Here are some more of the new features added to the two new plug-ins:

NEW Control Lines add flexibility when making broad adjustments, letting you harness the power of Control Points when sharpening across linear gradients
NEW Control Point diffusion lets you regulate the strength and style of sharpening adjustments more easily
NEW Control Points and Control Lines can now be inverted, giving you huge flexibility when sharpening specific areas of an image
NEW Color Selectivity sliders allow Control Point and Control Line editing to be tied to specific colours and tones in an image
NEW Renamable Local Adjustments let you stay on top of complex edits, and local adjustments can now be saved as Presets, giving you quick access to frequently used sharpening recipes.

There are some overall improvements with the whole suite too:

NEW Turn your edits into a Smart Object at any stage from within the plugin, giving you fully non-destructive editing in Photoshop
NEW Call on any of your last 15 Nik Collection edits and apply them with a single click
NEW Presets can now be searched for by name, so you can instantly find your favourite edits
NEW HiDPI & Multiscreen support lets you work with all screen configurations
NEW Affinity Photo is now automatically detected as part of installation.

Nik Collection 6.3 is available now as a free upgrade for existing Nik Collection 6 users.

For those who aren’t existing users, you can get the software from DXO’s online store. The price for the full suite is £135 / €149 . Upgrades from version 4 or 5 are £65 / € 79. There is also a 30 day trial available and the trial period has been reset so if you had tried version 6 and the trial expired, you can try version 6.3.

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