Nik Color Efex Pro

There is a great software plug in that I use along with Lightroom and Photoshop that I use primarily for some of my landscape images. the Nik Collection by DXO has been recently updated and is offered at a discount until June 30th, 2019 for the price of $99.00. After that, the cost for the software package will be $149.00.

The Nik Collection includes eight modules which are Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Analog Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro, Dfine (great noise reduction), Viveza, Sharpening Pro and now its stand alone DXO Photolab.

For the image above let’s begin with my original RAW image (converted to jpeg for posting.)

Original RAW file

When I import images into Lightroom, I have my own Import Preset that I apply to all my images that include noise reduction, lens correction, medium tone curve and additional basic exposure edits. This import preset puts me in the ballpark of editing an image and all I have to do is tweak each image I want to keep and saves me significant time in editing.

Here is the same image with my basic Lightroom Import Preset:

Lightroom Import Preset

When capturing this image I used the Singh Ray Lighter Brighter Color Combo Polarizing Filter which is phenomenal and of course the price reflects that. But I love the filter as it really makes the colors pop. I then adjust the white-balance due to the filter using the “K” Kelvin white balance and dial in somewhere around 5800.

Actually, the first thing I did for this image was keep an eye on the weather and made sure that I went after a few days of rain on a cloudy day. The forest, rocks and waterfall were still damp from the previous night’s rain which really made the colors pop on their own. The Polarizer filter helped reduce reflections and really enhance the natural colors in the scene.

Then importing the image to Nik Color Efex Pro from Lightroom I then applied one of my previously made presets that included Glamour Glow and Vignette Blur.

It took all but a minute to come up with the final result. If you are interested in getting your images to really pop and don’t yet have the Nik Collection, now’s the time to add it to your digital darkroom.