the latest version of the nik collection 6 is out and I'm reviewing a beta version of the
software today I'll be walking you through the latest changes since version 5. as well
as demonstrating some of the nik collection applications by editing my photos first in
the list of changes for the nik collection 6 is two with control points control points help us
select and adjust areas of an image in the nick collection we have the option of applying global
adjustments that affect the entire image or local adjustments that only affect parts of the image
by applying our adjustments with a control point for example if I want to select and enhance the
rocks on this ridge I can add a control point to select the area what's happening is that the
software is sampling the pixels below the center of the control point it then selects the other
pixels that have a similar color and tone that are inside the area of the control point after
adding a control point it appears in the selective adjustments list we can also rename the control
points to make it more obvious what they're used for to see what the control point is selecting we
can click the mask button to toggle the mask view on and off now we can see the areas selected by
this control point shown in white but what makes the control points easy to use is that they're
interactive so when we move them around the mask changes this gives you a lot of control over what
is and isn't being affected by your adjustments in the previous version of the Nic collection the
luminance and chrominance sliders were added these allow us to make changes to the sensitivity of the
control point to tone and color to further refine our selections and as I've been explaining this
you'll probably notice that the area selected by this control Point extends Beyond its edges
this is designed to help blend your adjustments with the rest of the image the only problem is
that you may not want it to do that and you may require it to be more accurate and this is where
the new diffusion slider in the Nik collection 6 can give us additional control over the
spread at the control Point by default it's set to 100 percent but when we reduce it we restrict the
Feathering around the edge of the control point this can help us create more precise selections
while still blending our adjustments if I turn off the mask View and increase the contrast and
structure you can see that it's only affecting the rocks in the area of the selection and whilst
we're talking about control points I want to show you something else I'm very pleased about we now
have the return of the control arm when I click this small icon above the local adjustment list I
can display my adjustment controls on the control point now this used to be in old versions of the
Nik collection but it was removed when dxol moved to the new design for the interface I'm
pleased to say that dxo appears to have listened to user feedback and that the controls are back
better still is that they're optional so we can turn them off and on as we need to with
the controls available on the control point I can now adjust the image without having to go back to
the controls in the side panel this makes such a difference to how easy it is to edit my images I
also like that dxo has found a way to include the newer controls for Selective tones and that we can
adjust the control Point sensitivity here using the luminance chrominance and diffusion sliders
but there's something else that I've discovered which wasn't mentioned in the briefing I attended
let me add a control point to the foreground to show you to see what's being selected I can turn
the mask view on in the selective adjustment list but I don't want to keep moving off to the right
side of the interface to toggle the mask on and off now in older versions of the Nik collection
some of the applications used a shortcut key if you held down the Cmd key or a Ctrl key on
a PC as you positioned or resize the control point you would see the mask view until you
release the mouse button this was removed from these applications when they were migrated to
this new interface I don't know if it's new to the Nik collection set or an earlier release but I'm
delighted to see this back this is a great feature that makes working with control points so much
easier now let's switch images because there's another new feature that I want to demonstrate
photos like this one can be a pain to edit using control points if I want to select the foreground
I need to use multiple control points it's then difficult to get the adjustments even across the
entire area now we have a new control line feature which some of you may already know from the dxo
photolab software you'll find the control line icon in the selective adjustments section of the
Nik applications after clicking the icon click and drag on the image to draw the control line if
I turn on the mask view you can see what's being selected by the control Line This has two lines
with a graduated area between them to help blend the adjustments below the bottom line everything
is being selected and above the top light nothing is selected we then have a sample point we which
we can position anywhere on the image as I move this you can see that the mask area is changing
to reflect the sample point we also have the Luminance and chrominance sliders to control the
sensitivity of this selection if I hide the mask and apply an adjustment you can see that it's
applied evenly across the area it's also nice to see that the shortcut of holding down my Cmd
key works with the control line as well now I want to show you another new feature that you might
overlook let's add a control point to the center of this image and I'll turn on the mask view so
you can see that what's selected by clicking the inverse icon here I can invert the selection and
this works with control lines as well as control points let's apply this change now because there
are some other new features that I want to show you if you already use the Nik collection with
Photoshop you probably know that you can apply most of the applications as a smart filter the
advantage of this is that it saves your settings and as part of the smart object layer then it's
possible to reopen and change your adjustments but the changes I've just applied were made
directly to the image layer this is what we call a destructive edit because we then can't go back
into the application to change the adjustments to be honest I make this mistake a lot when using
the Nik collection because I forget to create a layer and convert it to use Smart filters first
fortunately there are no two ways around this problem the first is to delete the image that
I just adjusted and then use the last edits option in the Nik collection palette when the application
reopens it automatically applies the last set of edits are saved that's useful but it becomes
more powerful in the Nik collection 6. if we look down to the bottom left corner of the interface
we see the new last edits panel here you'll find the last 15 edits that you applied with
this Nik application we can then browse these and click on any of them to apply them to the current
Edge the only problem now is that I've still forgotten to create a new layer and convert it
for smart filters in the past this meant having to close the application and return to photoshop
to start again but in the nick collection 6 we can convert the current layer for smart filters
from within the Nic application all we need to do is Tick the option at the bottom then when we
apply our adjustments and return to photoshop the changes are applied as a smart filter okay let's
go to look at another image because there's some more new features that I want to show you starting
with nik color efex as well as having all the features that we've been talking about nik color
efex now gets a new hsl filter this allows us to Target different colors in the image for
example if I pick the oranges in this image we can then change it to a different color using the
Hue slider I can also use the hsl filter to adjust the saturation and of course the lightness of this
color another new feature is the ink conclusion of a search bar for presets for example if I want to
apply the soft landscape preset to this image I can enter soft in the search bar this then lists
the presets which have the word soft in the title which we can then click to select I can imagine
this being very useful for people who've got a lot of custom presets although you will need to
follow some kind of naming convention to help you find the ones you want let's switch now to
nickdefine which has been migrated to the new style of user interface this allows you to take
advantage of all the new control line and control Point features we've been discussing there are now
only two applications that have the old style interface which are nik HDR efex and nik
sharpener Pro whilst these aren't included in this release they are scheduled for later this summer
and I understand this will be a free update for existing Nik collection 6 owners now let's look
at the nik perspective application which allows us to correct lens and perspective distortion if
I click the auto button it applies the lens correction but we also have a manual option
for lenses without modules this image also has a severe case of converging verticals because I
was using 14mm wide angle lens with the camera tilted upwards whilst I could correct this
manually the auto button seems to do a great job of it but supposing we only want to change part of
the image like increasing the space between this Arch and the top of the gate that's where the new
reshape tool comes in I can use this with one of four predefined grids where I can create a custom
grid of my own by selecting the number of rows and columns when we choose one of these it overlaids
a grid of nodes onto the image let's magnify the area of the door so I can show you how this works
I'll select two of these nodes by clicking and dragging out a region with my mouse I can then
drag one of the selected nodes down and it changes the other node by the same amount notice how this
allows me to warp parts of the image without affecting other areas though because I didn't
have all of the nodes correctly selected the top of this gate isn't straight all that I need to do
is Select and drag other nodes then when the image looks right I can apply the changes to
the grid if I turn off the reshape adjustment you can see the difference this creates most people
would never notice that this image was altered I should also mention that when I installed the
software the installation process had changed slightly Affinity photo users will be pleased
to note that the installer now recognizes and includes Affinity photo in the list of
compatible applications this means that you don't need to add it manually but do remember if you're
installing the trial version of this software it will replace all the copies of the Nik collection
be sure that you still have access to your old installation files before doing this in terms of
cost a new license for the Nik collection 6 is 149 and the same in Euros or in pounds it's
135 and if you already have the Nik collection 4 or 5 you can take advantage of the upgrade price of 79
or Euros or 69 pounds so how best to summarize these changes well if you were hoping to see
lots of new filters in AI technology this release will disappoint you instead I see this release as
being aimed at photographers and photo editors who want precision and a high degree of control over
their editing now I use the knit collection daily and I've spent a lot of time using the version 6
beta software what I've noticed about it is how the changes I've talked about combine to improve
your workflow it reminds me of when I reviewed the dxo pureraw 3 software earlier this year
it's only when I thought about going back to the Nik collection 5 that I realized how much
I'll miss them and if you missed my review of DxO PureRAW 3 you may want to watch that next otherwise
thanks for watching today I hope you've enjoyed this and I'll see you soon for another video