DXO launches Nik Collection 7, their biggest update to the suite ever

I’ve been using it from the start. Some very annoying minimal updates in the past . The best of these software are almost in the original version. Yes they’ve improved it but not often in a useful way. I see they have now added luminosity functionality. I always thought it daft that Silver efex pro showed you on a scale of one to 10 luminosity in the image but you couldn’t pick the brightest parts only to darken. Is it worthwhile, on balance yes. Hopefully this is a more substantial update than many of their past ones.

Hector1970 said:

I’ve been using it from the start. Some very annoying minimal updates in the past . The best of these software are almost in the original version. Yes they’ve improved it but not often in a useful way. I see they have now added luminosity functionality. I always thought it daft that Silver efex pro showed you on a scale of one to 9 luminosity in the image but you couldn’t pick the brightest parts only to darken. Is it worthwhile, on balance yes. Hopefully this is a more substantial update than many of their past ones.

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Funny.
Just a few days ago Skylum dropped an update for luminar Neo, giving us luminance masks. (And some more bullcrap like changing the colour of water and stuff like that)
I think they were so proud of their AI stuff, that it took them quite a long time to realise, people weren't actually using a lot of it, because it's unreliable as hell.
Especially the masking ai in luminar absolutely sucks. I almost exclusively use the more traditional options and get far better results quicker.
I'm glad they saw the need for luminance masking finally and reintroduced it to Neo, as previous versions of luminar had that feature

Hector1970 said:

I’ve been using it from the start. Some very annoying minimal updates in the past . The best of these software are almost in the original version. Yes they’ve improved it but not often in a useful way. I see they have now added luminosity functionality. I always thought it daft that Silver efex pro showed you on a scale of one to 10 luminosity in the image but you couldn’t pick the brightest parts only to darken. Is it worthwhile, on balance yes. Hopefully this is a more substantial update than many of their past ones.

Click to expand...

Even after the many years of using it, and then going back to it, I still find the interface very clunky compared to all the other plug-in options.

However, I do think one of the biggest changes is subtle, more under-the-hood. From my experience with it this past year (after much time with tech support to get it to open properly!), Nik seems to have better control of halos and artifacts, and that's critical. Images look better, and it's not as easy to overdo things as it was years ago.

I'm not seeing any mention of interface improvements in the press-release. Working with SiverEfex, for example, could be so much easier if the Film Effects section could have its own intensity/opacity slider. Just way too fiddly in many cases.

Since SilverEfex came out many years ago, LR and PS have become better and easier for B&W conversions, and so have Exposure and ON1. I don't see that SilverEfex has anything new to offer besides better control of halos and artifacts--but the other apps never really had much of an issue in that respect.

Hoping they keep improving! Will be happy to continue using Nik 6, as it is finally running smoothly and fast on my i9-13900K system. Maybe a version 7.5 will entice?