DxO confirms Nik Collection 2

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Software company DxO has confirmed an update to its popular Nik Collection set of plugins.

DxO bought the Nik Collection from Google two years ago, and gave the plugins an update last year. This latest Nik Collection 2.0 update adds 42 'En Vogue' presets to the 156 existing options, spread across four of its seven plugins.

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Developed with Dan Hughes, a lecturer in photography at Rochester Institute of Technology, 10 of these are added to each of the Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Analog Efex Pro plugins, with a further 12 new HDR presets added to HDR Efex Pro. 

These plugins, which also include Viveza, Dfine, Sharpener Pro, are compatible with Adobe's most popular editing programs, namely Photoshop, Lightroom Classic and Elements – and you can view four of the new effects below.

High-resolution (HiDPI) monitor support has also come to Windows users, who should also now see the graphic elements of Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro and Analog Efex Pro plugins improved for "flawless readability" on these high-resolution displays.

Existing technologies, such as DxO Smart Lighting and PRIME De-noising, have all been either retained or tweaked in some way for this latest version. The previously seen U-Point technology, for example, can now be applied to raw files.

PhotoLab 2.3 now bundled as standard

Aside from the new presets, the other major announcement is that Nik Collection 2 now comes with DxO's PhotoLab 2.3 Essential Edition raw-editing software as standard. Previously, DxO PhotoLab 2 was retailing at £99 on its own.

The software is said to have been adapted so that users can now access the plugins from the PhotoLab workspace, and support has also been added for many new camera and lens combinations, including the Nikon D3500, Panasonic S1R, Sony A6400 and Canon EOS RP. DxO claims that with this latest update, the total number of supported camera/lens combinations now stands at 47,500 – a full list can be found on DxO's website.

Jean-Marc Alexia, VP Product Strategy and Marketing with DxO, said: “By offering our advanced photo editing solution along with the Nik Collection 2, we are giving users access to DxO’s powerful and high-quality raw treatment technology as well as its unparalleled optical corrections, which were developed over 15 years of measurements and analyses conducted in its laboratory.” 

Right now you can grab the Nik Collection 2 for $99 / £87 and $60 / £50 if you already own the precious version and just need to upgrade. These prices will shoot up to $149 / £125 and $79 / £69 on June 30.

DxO PhotoLab 2.3 is also available in Essential and Elite flavors, priced at $129 / £112 and $199 / £169 respectively, although if you already own DxO PhotoLab 2 you can download it without paying a penny. Pricing for Australia is yet to be announced.

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