Here is a “before and after” version of the image that worked out OK (with no prior Lightroom adjustments) with the Clarity Bump preset:Ĭonsidering that DxO put little effort into this release, you might be wondering if it is worth upgrading to Nik Collection 2. For some images, it looked pretty decent, while for others, I had to still fiddle with the sliders to get the look I wanted. In Color Efex Pro 4, the “Clarity Bump” preset (or “Recipe”, which is how it is referred to within the software) is pretty nice if you need to quickly bring some clarity to a flat RAW file, but I found some of the adjustments to be a bit too aggressive for my taste, especially after any Lightroom adjustments. I gave some of the presets a try within Color Efex Pro 4 and Silver Efex Pro 2, and to be honest, I really didn’t care for most of them.

Nik Collection 2 now comes with a total of 42 new presets under a new “En Vogue” category for Color Efex Pro 4, Silver Efex Pro 2, HDR Efex Pro 2 and Analog Efex Pro 2. None of the actual tools had any serious changes and their version numbers remain the same. In fact, I personally don’t think that this release even deserves a major version name change, as it seems to be more of a “preset release” than anything else.

While the support for high-resolution monitors is great to finally see in Nik Collection, it seems like nothing else has really changed as far as the tools are concerned. The new version of the software, Nik Collection 2 comes with over 40 brand new presets and support for high-resolution monitors. Today DxO released its first major version of its Nik Collection suite that it acquired from Google last year.

Nik collection 4 by dxo