At a glance
£135 for three lifetime licences
£69 upgrade
● Mac and Windows compatible
● U point technology
● New Control lines tool
● New last used edits feature
● Integrates with Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo
● 30-day free trial available
● dxo.com
DxO Labs is renowned for its optical correction modules, with over 80,000 camera/lens combinations in its database. But it also has an impressive software portfolio: PhotoLab, a capable editing app; PureRaw, a cutting-edge denoising program for camera raw files; and the Nik Collection, a suite of powerful creative and technical apps.
DxO acquired the Nik Collection from Google in 2017. But its history goes back further to 2009, when software firm Nik bundled its imaging plug-ins Dfine, Viveza, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro into a single suite. The Ultimate Edition of these apps sold for $599.95. Google bought Nik Software in 2012, and the Google Nik Collection was marketed for a more affordable $149. It was made even more accessible in 2016 when Google offered the whole package as a free download, and not surprisingly its popularity soared. This was fuelled by the fact that the plug-ins were really very good, with Silver Efex Pro being the standout performer with its superb black &