hello i'm robin whalley welcome to lenscraft today i'm looking at color efex pro
which is one of my favorite tools in the nik collection by dxo in this video i'll
be sharing a selection of tips that could help you use the software more effectively
you may already know some of these but i'm sure there'll be something new for many nik collection
users the first tip is something that's simple that a lot of people don't realize is possible
let's say that i want to use the pro contrast filter to neutralize the color of the sky
in a photo when i move the correct color cast slider over to the right it fixes the sky but
it also changes the foreground to prevent this happening i can add a negative control point
to the foreground to protect that area from the filter adjustment now let's also imagine that i
want to increase the contrast of the foreground using the same filter unfortunately when i make
the adjustment it affects the sky and not the foreground because i've applied control points
the simple solution and something that many people don't realize you can do
is to add another pro contrast filter now i can use the contrast sliders to adjust the foreground
i'll then limit this adjustment to the ground using control points
the important point to understand is that you can continue to add
multiple filters of the same type to an
image
now let's look at a button that's also often overlooked
you'll find this at the bottom of the history panel let's imagine that i'm editing a series
of similar images and i want to apply the same settings to this image as i did to the last one
i edited one way i can do this quickly is to save my filter combination as a recipe
i can then apply the recipe to each of the images as i edit them but if i edit my first image and i
forget to save the recipe i can use this button to reapply the filters to the new image when i
click the button the current filters are replaced by the filters i applied to my previous image
now i can save the filters as a recipe for further use by clicking the save button
whilst we're in the history panel let's look at another tip to help us compare history states
when editing an image as i've been making changes to this image you can see the adjustments building
up in the history list if i click one of the entries in the list the preview displays that
point in my editing history now watch what happens when i switch to the split screen preview mode
the preview now shows the original image on the left and the selected point in the history list
on the right but something else has also happened we now have a small orange pointer at the top left
of the list i can use this pointer to control the history state of the left side of the image
by clicking and dragging it down the list i can pick another point to use for the comparison
this allows me to control the history state for both the left and right sides of the image
the only limitation is that the left side of the image needs to be earlier in the history than the
right side if i click on an earlier point in the list the pointer also moves back to that position
now let's go back to the filters and look at another feature that's often overlooked which
is the filter presets let's imagine that i want to add a graduated fog filter to this image because i
want the fog to appear stronger the usual way to do this is by adding a new empty filter and then
clicking on the filter in the filter library but notice the icon to the right of the filter
when i hover my mouse over it in the list when i click this icon i can see a series of thumbnails
these thumbnails are presets and when i click one of them it applies those settings to my filter
all of the filters in color effects pro come with these presets that you can use
now notice these up and down arrows at the top i can use these to move up and down the list of
filters whilst viewing the different presets this is a great way to find interesting filters and
effects that work together but which you might not have thought of each time i move to a new filter
the thumbnails preview how that preset looks when applied to my image let's now move on and look at
how control points behave in color effects pro as it's different to some of the other nik plugins
i'll start by adding a polaroid transfer effect to the image because it's quite strong and it's easy
to see i'll then expand the control point section of the filter which reveals an opacity slider
by default the filter opacity is set to 100 but you can use this slider to change it as i reduce
the slider it fades the effect without needing to make any further adjustments to the filter
settings this is extremely useful but it also works in conjunction with the control points
watch what happens when i add a positive control point if you're not familiar with the color effect
control points this is how you control where the filter is applied to an image when you use a plus
control point it applies the filter effect to that area if i add a control point to the sky i'm
selecting that area now if you want to see what's being selected by a control point click the view
mask option in the control point list the area in white is what the control point has selected
and where the filter is being applied now also look at what's happened to the opacity slider
it's been set to zero which is hiding the filter effect from the rest of the image
but supposing we want to lower strength of the filter to apply everywhere but the filter to
apply at full strength where the control point is all we need to do is increase the opacity slider
and if i move the opacity slider back to 100 the filter is applied everywhere even though i have a
control point on the image as well as having the global opacity slider for the filter each control
point also has its own opacity slider we can use these to control the strength of the filter effect
in the area selected by the control point if i move the control point opacity slider to zero
it removes the filter effect from that area this is just like adding a negative control point
something else that's often overlooked when people use control points is that you can synchronize the
control points when i click and drag with my mouse i can select multiple control points together
know when i move the opacity slider for one of the control points all the selected control points
are also adjusted if i don't want to keep having to select all the control points when i do this
i can group them together by clicking the group button below the control point list
then i only need to select the group to be able to adjust the opacity of all the control points
in that group now something else that's often missed is that despite the control points being
grouped i can still move each one independently and i can also resize those individual control
points whilst all the time they stay in my group combining control points like
this and using them with the filters global opacity slider gives a huge amount of control
the final tip i'm going to share is that you can copy control points between different filters
first i select the control point or points to copy from the filter by clicking them in the list
i can then select the copy control point option in the pop-up menu at the top of the filter
now i can go to one of the other filters and with the same pop-up menu paste the control points
i can continue to do this applying the control points to each of the filters
i hope you found it interesting and picked up at least a couple of new tips and ideas for
working with nik color efex pro if you like this video and want to see more tips in the future
let me know your thoughts in the youtube video comments i'm robin
whalley you've been watching lenscraft i'll see you soon for another video