Inspiration - Nik Collection by DxO (2023)

Tools that can take you further than you ever imagined

With 8 incredible plug-ins, your creativity is unleashed. Find some inspiration in the case studies below.

Portraits

Smooth skin, eyes full of energy, and a vibe that brings all of the elements together, Nik Collection⁵ has everything you need to take a portrait in any direction that takes your fancy.

Nik Viveza was used to dodge and burn this portrait to add a touch of drama before softening the features for a smoother finish.

To get a completely different feel, Nik Silver Efex was used to give this portrait a classic quality, including a hint of a sepia tone to create a sense of timelessness.

Lifestyle

The photographer’s original edit of this back-lit cyclist is bright and energetic but it was then given a slightly grittier, urban feel by using a preset in Nik Analog Efex.

The plug-in was then used again to take this candid shot in a completely different direction, producing a more playful and vintage atmosphere through the use of blurs and wet plate filters.

Wildlife

When you’re this close to the action, you want to convey it exactly as you remember it. After making some small changes in Photoshop®, the photographer used Nik Color Efex to draw out the warmth of the late afternoon sunshine. The edit brings a glow to the scene and gives a sheen to the horses’ manes as they catch the light.

Adding to the energy, the water gains a touch of extra contrast, conjuring the chaos and noise of the spray as the herd rushes towards us.

Street

Street photography often lends itself well to high contrast black-and-white, especially when the sun is low, creating lots of dramatic shadows and epic highlights.

Nik Silver Efex was used to take this clean and crisp image and give it the texture of a classic film grain, before deepening the shadows to make the most of the geometry.

This street scene now feels like it comes to you straight from the darkroom.

Landscape

After some tidying up in Photoshop, the photographer used Nik Color Efex to convey the feeling of sailing among icebergs lit by the midnight sun off the coast of Greenland.

Using the Tonal Contrast and Brilliance/Warmth filters, the changes are subtle. They capture the warmth and add a glow to the midtones, drawing out the colors to create a rich contrast between the blue of the sky and ocean, the red of the sails, and the hazy pink of the light.

The third image shows how the new ClearView slider in Nik Color Efex can cut through the mist, allowing a touch of extra detail to come through.

Still life

Creating a shallow depth of field can be a great way to remove distractions or direct the viewer’s gaze. In this image, Nik Perspective Efex was used to place emphasis on the grapes at the front of the photograph, making space for text and other graphics ahead of its inclusion in a magazine.

The final step was to prepare it for printing. The photo was given some extra crispness with Nik Sharpener, targeting only the in-focus parts of the image thanks to the plug-in’s U Point™ technology. There’s a touch more detail in the sliced fig, making it leap off the page.

Events

This image didn’t need much but Nik Color Efex was used to add a touch more vibrancy and bring all of the competing colors together. Subtle use of the Bleach Bypass and Cross Balance filters gave the photographer the intensity and feel that he wanted, and a Graduated Neutral Density filter was able to even out the brightness of the top and bottom halves.

Capturing the leaping couple during golden hour meant using a relatively high ISO of 2000. Once the edit was complete, Nik Dfine was deployed to reduce the small amount of digital noise that was starting to break up the clean texture of the balloons.

Family

Nik Silver Efex means that grain, deep shadows, and bright highlights can transform a family snapshot into an image that captures the true character of those closest to you.

Polaroid stopped making its much-loved 667 black-and-white stock more than a decade ago but it lives on inside Nik Silver Efex. If anything, poor lighting conditions and a soft lens just add to the effect, giving this photo even more atmosphere.

Fine art

Nik HDR Efex is more than just a tool for blending images into a scene with a high dynamic range. In this example, it has been used to turn day into night, creating the impression that the setting sun is a huge full moon shining down across the rooftops of central Paris.

Among the filters available in Nik HDR Efex is Black and White Realist, enabling this dramatic change with just a single click. The sliders then allow you to tweak the image, dialling in the blending to just the right amount.

Black and white

The weather brings a lot of the drama to this image and the new ClearView slider in Nik Silver Efex was used to draw out extra detail in the clouds, creating mood through the increased contrast. It also finds a little more clarity from the sweeping landscape in the background that was being lost to the misty conditions. Some heavy grain was then added, a characteristic of shooting on high ISO film stock.

An alternative edit was made using a filter in Nik Analog Efex to give the impression that this photo comes straight from the album of an early 20th century explorer, conjuring a sense of mountaineering’s rich history.

Travel

This blue hour photo in the desert lends itself well to dramatic black and white. The photographer used Nik Silver Efex to create a grainy scene with bold silhouettes in order to make the most of the camels’ distinctive shapes.

A completely different feel was then achieved with Nik Viveza, shifting the white balance to give a warmer feel. In addition, Control Points were used to emphasize the orange glow of the horizon and pick out some of the contours of the dunes.

Architecture

Black and white architectural photography is often a study of geometry and light, and the photographer has used both Nik Silver and Nik Perspective Efex to tell a story of tones, textures, and strong lines.

To begin, Nik Perspective Efex automatically fixed the lens’s optical distortions thanks to DxO Optics Modules. Then, the major edit: the plug-in’s keystoning tool addressed the collapsing verticals that came as a result of shooting from a low position with a wide-angle lens. The buildings now stand up straight and create a more stable and impressive scene.