Nik Collection 4 offers more realistic film grain and an improved user experience.

DxO is back with the most recent iteration of its Nik software, Nik Collection 4. It’s lacking the pomp and circumstance of the complete overhaul it received after being acquired from Google. Instead, the revamped Nik Collection 4 is more like a soft crescendo. It is similar to an S-version release with the subtle refinements we’ve come to know and appreciate. But, it has a whole lot of room to improve. Before you download it, be absolutely sure that you’ve got a lot of hard drive space. You’ll see why.

Too Long Didn’t Read

Nik Collection 4 includes a modernized interface more akin to the Adobe workspaces we have become accustomed to working in. Silver Efex Pro has gained even more black and white film-like capabilities. But, the suite still has room to improve.

Pros And Cons

Pros

Updated interface is more user-friendly

UI is more reminiscent of Adobe LR and PS

39 new black and white film grains for Silver Efex Pro 3

Ability to access last recipe and save with control points

Cons

Non-destructive workflow still requires .Tiff files, thus not truly non-destructive

Control points, while intuitive, are not as precise as layer masks

Time-consuming working between platforms

No Capture One integration

What’s New in Nik Collection 4?

Silver Efex Pro 3

DxO’s newest Silver Efex Pro 3 is hands-down the top selling point of this release. It boasts 58 black and white presets and 28 black and white film types. The plug-in now includes 39 film grains that Nik claims to produce images that look more like analog film than ever before. DxO has spent a significant amount of time researching and developing these various grains and emulsions.

They do not indicate what factors were considered when they produced the film grain for use within the plug-in when they made this claim. For example, Kodak Tri-X can look different with Rodinal vs. some other developers. The same can be said for Ilford and Fuji and the various developers. Our Editor in Chief pressed DXO on this in a press demo, but they weren’t able to provide a clear answer. It sounded more like marketing fluff, which we’re trained to see though. As such, this may be more of a marketing ploy than an actual representation of the most realistic film looks.

If you’re curious, we’ve reviewed a ton of film emulsions. You can see our guides to Lomography, Cinestill, and Kodak films. These have a lot of our reviews on individual film emulsions.

Various monochrome renderings are made possible to please multiple aesthetics while local adjustments are fairly customizable with the updated U-point technology. The control points are now easily incorporated into personalized presets.

In contrast, these control points are not nearly as precise as the layers and masks they are attempting to avoid. As a result, they are not nearly as convenient to achieve the desired result. It would be quicker to pull the image into Photoshop as a layer and mask off the appropriate areas. I still enjoyed browsing the various film types I fell in love with at the onset of my photography journey.

Additionally, Silver Efex Pro now includes the same Clearview technology that was originally offered in DxO Photolab. Better suited in a non-portraiture environment, it instantly enhances local contrast and removes haze from an image.

Viveza 3

Viveza continues to define its role within the Nik creative suite with its third release which now includes 10 native presets designed by professional photographers. The presets are geared towards landscape, cityscape and portrait photographers. The color and tonal presets change the time of day from golden hour to blue hour and remove color casts effortlessly without the need to put multiple control points. However, with the exception of the tonal correction preset, they aren’t ideal for portraits.

In contrast, the skin softening and eye sharpening presets work well enough for basic adjustments. If the goal ...