New Nik collection

[DanK]

The new version of the Nik software has been released. From the descriptions I have read, for example, this, I'm disappointed. It has two features I would find valuable--the ability to work on raw files, and enhanced u-point controls. The rest doesn't interest me. It offers support for high-resolution monitors, but I don't have one (and won't, since I just splurged on a wide-gamut monitor). Mostly, it has lots more presets. It's a matter of taste, but I rarely use presets.

If anyone tries it out, I would be eager to hear about real experiences with it.

[John 2]

I occasionally use a preset as a starting point but I do like some of their tools. e.g. for noise reduction and micro contrast (Vivesa) but I've been having problems with it for some time which the support team have been unable to solve (it only boots up properly when it feels like it). They have now given up after hoping that the solution would be the new release. To a degree it might be so because the introduction of DXO Photo Lab 2 will allow me to process image separately before exporting them to Photoshop however, there is nothing in Nick that isn't available elsewhere, and so I will keep the old version but I do not intend to invest in the latest version.

[Donald]

They keep plugging this even with those of us who already have it, which I find very frustrating. You end up checking what you've got to see if it is what they're selling or a whether they've got a new one out.

[Manfred M]

In my case, the biggest reason for upgrading was the bug fixes. The Google version crashed Photoshop more often than not and the latest releases are far more stable. I have used Color Efex in a lot of my work in the past, but I'm using it less and less given the recent updates to Camera Raw and the texture functionality. I find I can emulate the Pro Contrast by working in the Lab colour space and the texture gives me the same type of effects I was getting with Detail Extractor. I find I still use their ND Gradient as it does a better job than Photoshop's.

I tend to mix from scratch and don't start with the Nik presets so the recent release more presets does nothing for me. I've never been a great fan of the U-Point technology (not precise enough) I have used work arounds in Photoshop to get over those limitations. It's almost gotten to the point were I am considering not updating this tool in the future.

[Thornton]

There is a lot of discussion on the DxO user forum about whether the new Nik filters allow working with raw files, and it seems that you simply cannot work with raws. If you process a raw in PhotoLab and then hit the “Nik” button, PL simply exports a TIFF with the raw edits carried out to that point. In the DxO photo library, the TIFF thumbnail with suffix “Nik” shows up next to the original raw and the sidecar file. It is not possible to apply a Nik filter to the raw file and then carry on working on a Nik-modified raw file within the raw workspace. As for the enhanced U-point controls, they seem to be available in PL rather than in the Nik filters. DxO, whether intentionally or inadvertently, seem to have caused a lot of confusion over this issue. The ability to use U-point technology on raw files is within PL and not within Nik.

I was happy to pay for the new Nik filters because it was a cost-effective way to get PL2 (basic version) but if I hadn't wanted PL, the Nik upgrade wouldn’t have been any significant advance on the Nik suite that I acquired a few months ago.

Julian

[Manfred M]

There is a lot of discussion on the DxO user forum about whether the new Nik filters allow working with raw files, and it seems that you simply cannot work with raws.

This makes perfect sense to me. The plugins require image data to work with so the raw data has to be converted into an image before any work can be done on them.

Frankly, because of my personal workflow, I like the option of blending the effect into the file, so working in a Photoshop layer is definitely my preferred approach to using Nik.

The only downside to this with the plugins is that Dfine (noise reduction) and Sharpener Pro (Pre-sharpener) should ideally be done on the raw data before it is converted to an image file. This is the reason I have little use for either of these two. I don't use the output sharpening either simply because I prefer the USM in Photoshop, but at least it allows me to vary the output sharpening; I never sharpen water, skies or high frequency areas (leaves and grass) and in fact I will often blur those areas slightly.

[DanK]

It does make sense, but then what is new about this? If I recall correctly, one could always (at least in Lightroom) call Nik while editing a raw file; it returned a TIFF, and I assume it converted to TIFF before loading the image.

[davidedric]

Yes, that's exactly right. In fact, if you cancel the edit in Nik, you will still have the TIFF file in the Catalogue

It does make sense, but then what is new about this? If I recall correctly, one could always (at least in Lightroom) call Nik while editing a raw file; it returned a TIFF, and I assume it converted to TIFF before loading the image.

[Donald]

I don't use the output sharpening either simply because I prefer the USM in Photoshop, but at least it allows me to vary the output sharpening; I never sharpen water, skies or high frequency areas (leaves and grass) and in fact I will often blur those areas slightly.

With the definition afforded by new cameras the need for all forms of sharpening (capture, creative and output) is greatly reduced from what it used to be only a few years ago. I do use the output sharpener not for output sharpening, but as a creative sharpening tool, using the Structure and Local Contrast sliders in various combinations (and as a smart filter) depending on the image, in combination with a Layer Mask in Photoshop so that I can choose what I want to sharpen.

From having been a champion of Silver Efex Pro I now use it only rarely, preferring to do my B & W work in Photoshop.

[Manfred M]

With the definition afforded by new cameras the need for all forms of sharpening (capture, creative and output) is greatly reduced from what it used to be only a few years ago. I do use the output sharpener not for output sharpening, but as a creative sharpening tool, using the Structure and Local Contrast sliders in various combinations (and as a smart filter) depending on the image, in combination with a Layer Mask in Photoshop so that I can choose what I want to sharpen.

From having been a champion of Silver Efex Pro I now use it only rarely, preferring to do my B & W work in Photoshop.

Agreed (to a point) Donald. With the continued roll out of higher resolution sensors and removal of the anti-aliasing filter in many higher end digital cameras, the only issue that introduces softness to the capture is the de-mosaicing operation carried out by the raw convertor. While I find that there are exceptions, the default settings in the raw convertor often work well enough most of the time.

When it comes to output sharpening and we take 24MP images and higher and downsample them to at best 2MP (1920 x 1080 pixel standard computer screen) we get an effect that I refer to as "virtual sharpening" from the downsampling algorithms. The is the effect where smaller renditions of the image seem sharper even if we have done nothing to the image. As an example an image that looks perfectly sharp on our camera screens can look quite soft when we see it on our computer screen. This is effectively what downsampling does so I hardly ever output sharpen my postings on the internet.

Where I do a lot of work on it is when I print as the output size impacts the amount of output sharpening that is required.

In-process sharpening is somewhat along the same vein (and this impacts my import sharpening as well). "Crunchy" water, sky and skin looks awful. It is easy for grass, leaves on trees and a beach covered in pebbles to look "crunchy" as well. Rather than dealing with them later, I will often leave those areas untouched in import sharpening or I will apply a Gaussian blur during my in-process work. I handle hair as a bit of a mix; leaving areas soft and bringing out the sharpness in others (much like I dodge hair to accentuate tonal areas). Eyes, lips, eye lashes and eye brows virtually always get some amount of in-process sharpening. Other parts of the image are handled based on the look and feel I am after.

Donald is quite right; tools like clarity, dehaze and the new texture filter in ACR / Lightroom are excellent tools for controlling micro-contrast. What I don't like is the way Adobe has implemented them in their raw editors rather than in their pixel editor as I generally do not like these applied globally, so cutting back on them requires more work. I do find that I have been using Pro Contrast, Detail Extractor and Tonal Contrast in Nik Color Efex in my workflow, and much like Donald's comments on how he does not rely on Silver Efex as much as he used to, I'm very much the same way with the Color Efex tool. The View-Point technology is simply not accurate enough for my work (the same issue I have with the local adjustment tools in ACR / Lightroom). Again, more of a problem for printers than someone doing digital images only.

[DanK]

Adjustments such as clarity, texture, and structure are not substitutes for sharpening.

I've never been able to ascertain exactly what Nik's structure slider does; it seems somewhat similar to clarity in LR or USM local contrast in Photoshop, although those two are in turn different from each other. However, a very straightforward comparison of texture and clarity in Lightroom with sharpening can be found here. As far as I can tell, clarity differs from both sharpening and texture not only in terms of the frequency range affected, but also in that clarity affects mid-tone contrast as well (hence the saturation effect Kost refers to at that link).

My camera is a 5 D III, and there are now other cameras that have higher resolution and no AA filter and therefore should need less sharpening. With that camera, however, I find that sharpening is essential, and the type of sharpening that works best varies with the characteristics of the image. I often end up adding two sharpening layers in Photoshop created with different methods and switch between them to compare effects. Given that I do a lot of images of flowers, I often end up with an old-fashioned approach, a high-pass filter, because it works on salient edges while leaving most of the rest untouched. I sometimes sharpen in Lightroom instead, as I find that with the masking adjustment, I can often easily exclude smooth areas.

Manfred--you can use the new texture adjustment for local adjustments using the adjustment brush. It depends on the image, but I find that with auto-masking turned on, it is often quite effective at localizing adjustments. In addition, at least in LR (I haven't checked this in the ACR interface), you can localize adjustments using color and luminosity.

[Manfred M]

Manfred--you can use the new texture adjustment for local adjustments using the adjustment brush. It depends on the image, but I find that with auto-masking turned on, it is often quite effective at localizing adjustments. In addition, at least in LR (I haven't checked this in the ACR interface), you can localize adjustments using color and luminosity.

Dan - I understand that, but the it is still very much a adjustment based on the algorithm deciding on what is being selected. I find I need to go in and don't often like the way the effect is applied and I want more subtlety, so I have to do a workaround.

I fully understand why Adobe is adding functionality to ACR / Lightroom as this is the way the majority of their user base (both many amateurs and retail (portrait and wedding) photographers) work. You'll never pick up on these issues if the output is a computer screen or a smart phone.

My issue is that I tend to make these decisions further along the editing chain, not at the time I am working in the raw convertor because of the cumulative impact of other edits I am making..

[Jim A]

My brief comment is that I still use the free Silver Efex 2 to convert to B&W as a starting point (and even sometimes do not need to further edit). In competition my B&W have done very well in comparison with my colour efforts, so I must give credit there. Don't know if there was much difference between Silver Efex 1 & 2?

[DanK]

There are limits to how much one can control the functioning of the adjustment brush. However, the fact that the texture tool is only in ACR shouldn't preclude using it later in a series of edits. One can just apply a camera raw filter at that point.

Dan - I understand that, but the it is still very much a adjustment based on the algorithm deciding on what is being selected. I find I need to go in and don't often like the way the effect is applied and I want more subtlety, so I have to do a workaround.

I fully understand why Adobe is adding functionality to ACR / Lightroom as this is the way the majority of their user base (both many amateurs and retail (portrait and wedding) photographers) work. You'll never pick up on these issues if the output is a computer screen or a smart phone.

My issue is that I tend to make these decisions further along the editing chain, not at the time I am working in the raw convertor because of the cumulative impact of other edits I am making..

[Manfred M]

There are limits to how much one can control the functioning of the adjustment brush. However, the fact that the texture tool is only in ACR shouldn't preclude using it later in a series of edits. One can just apply a camera raw filter at that point.

In fact that is exactly what I do. The problem with this method is that it takes up more storage that should be necessary as I end up adding a duplicate layer that I apply the Camera Raw filter with attached layer mask to. It should have to be that difficult.