DxO has announced the release of Nik Collection 5, the latest version of the popular Photoshop plugin. While version 4 contained improvements to Viveza and Silver Efex, the new version 5 concentrates on Color Efex and Analog Efex. The improvements include a new interface, 29 new film grains, a Clearview feature to remove haze, fog and mist, easier to use presets, improved U Point technology, a Perspective Efex feature to correct distortion, and the inclusion of DxO Photolab5 Essential, a stripped down version of the full app.
Reading through the changes, it's obvious that DxO is duplicating features from one app to the next. To be precise, the new film grains are already included in FilmPack 6, the Clear View feature is included in the full version of PhotoLab 5, and the Perspective Efex is already included in ViewPoint. For those who own those apps, as I do, there's not much reason to upgrade to the new Nik Collection, especially as I do not often use the U Point technology in my work. Also, it's irritating that the upgrades are proceeding piecemeal. Rather than upgrading all the filters at once, DxO is instead apparently releasing them two at a time and then charging for each partial upgrade. There's not even an upgrade discount for users of version 2.0.
One feature that is useful is that Collection 5 can now apparently be used as a standalone app in both Windows and Mac. That alone, however, is not sufficient cause for me to pay $149 for the full version of the software.
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