I have been using the Nik tools ever since the days they were incorporated into Nikon’s Capture NX 2, and really love them. I’m glad that DxO has taken up the gauntlet and is keeping them alive.
But I’d love to find a similar “one stop shop” solution for my RAW (NEF) processing workflow, where all of my edits can be made as non-destructive edits from within a single tool… i.e. Photolab… including those made by Nik Collection.
At the moment, it seems like you have to make the majority of your edits with native Photolab tools, and then export a “flattened” TIFF over to Nik, and then you apply your preset in Nik and then Apply to commit those edits to the TIFF. It’s a bit disjointed, despite these tools both being owned by the same company. And even more disjointed when you want to use two different tools in the Nik Collection, e.g. Color Efex and Analog Efex.
It would be really nice to be able to make the Nik adjustments from within Photolab, so that all edits are packaged up non-destructively in the single .dop file… all you need to do is open your raw file in PL again and you have it all there (including Nik edits).
And you can copy/paste adjustments (including Nik adjustment) between images. And also do a batch export of multiple images, including Nik adjustments.
In other words, something similar to what you have with the Filmpack stuff… but for Nik.
EDIT here are some similar feature requests that could do with an upvote along with this one, so as not to dillute votes between similar requests:
Yes. It seems to me that DxO has been working on this very gradually and can’t do it any other way. First, the U-Point technology was brought into PhotoLab. FilmPack (long ago integrated into PhotoLab) shares a lot with Analog Efex and Silver Efex, and I think they have more in common now than in the past. ViewPoint functions were once ported to the Nik Collection, but now the preference is to just use ViewPoint either as a plug-in like the Nik Collection tools or integrated in PhotoLab. The remaining tools unique to Nik are:
Dfine (complements DeepPRIME as a specialized noise reducer)
Sharpening tools
HDR Efex (needs work - I find it barely usable in my workflow)
Color Efex
I think the latter two have the most potential as targets for at least partial PhotoLab integration, given relatively little overlap. Were I to pick just one, it would be Color Efex.
I suggest looking through the many older feature requests that are identical to this one, as they’ve already accumulated votes and comments. One of them might be a better instrument for change to put our energies into - or maybe not:
Urgh, my forum searching abilities are really poor… I did search beforehand but didn’t find anything… but there is this one with an almost identical title to mine!
Yeah the various Nik tools are a slightly awkward fit with what is already in PL. I can see that there is quite an overlap between FilmPack and Analog/Silver Efex, so I’m not sure how those could be reconciled.
But I did try hard to get FilmPack to replicate some of the same effects I was getting with Analog/Silver Efex and couldn’t come even close… with the equivalent Nik tools it just seems to be so much easier and quicker (and more enjoyable) to achieve dramatic results, compared to FilmPack.
And now with AI masking in PL9 (but not in Nik Collection) it seems to be even more important to have Nik available directly within PL because otherwise Nik will (once again) become the poor neglected neighbour.
You have a point here. Nik Collection was made for effect & ease of use and DxO has kept it that way (sort of) - put the price we pay is the No-RAW-support. Maybe that DxO will remove that obstacle or come up with a solution with a temporary intermediate file - and I’d really be surprised if any such thing happened before 2028.
Yep, sadly having read some of the older feature requests (that I should have found before posting this one), it seems like this is something that users have longed for but for one reason or another DxO are reluctant to address… maybe in the “too difficult” pile. For example in this post there are people wondering whether it might be addressed in PL3… and here we are with PL9 and there still isn’t a proper integration with Nik Collection.
Been asking for this for so many years that I lost any hope…
15 years ago, Capture NX2 had complete and (performance-wise) fast, non destructive integration of Nik Collection within NX2 at RAW level, with no need to export to an intermediate TIFF.
FIFTEEN years, and DxO hasn’t been able to replicate it…
Yeah, that is disappointing. Capture NX 2 + Nik was the perfect combination for me. I would still use it, except that it won’t (as I understand it) run on an ARM based MacBook like I have. Maybe I should just upgrade my aging Windows PC and use Capture NX 2 + Nik on that, with the money I save by not buying PL + Nik for my MacBook. I’m still using my old D800 so it’s not like I need the latest raw support!
I suppose that this was more of a marketing/management decision than something relating to capabilities. PhotoLab has to (my guess) work with an intermediate RGB image that we can’t see but on our screen.
As far as I remember, the Nik Collection grew out of a set of features that were specifically designed for Nikon’s software, there might therefore have been a few hooks onto which the collection could attach itself. PhotoLab has no such thing as far as I know, but this might change…if DxO decided to go that route.
It would also be nice to retain the ability to run it as a standalone app… I can see the advantage in that too… so that you’re not tied to Photolab in future. From DxO’s perspective, they would perhaps prefer to have it integrated into PL so that to use the Nik tools you have to buy two products from them!
I would like Nik to have at least their own sidecars, if more tight integration is too costly. Manually saving NC settings for each image is not the right way to work.
Same question here, is it technically possible to integrate the Nik collection (or parts of it) into Photolab for license owners, just like Filmpack or Viewpoint, without creating a seperate hundreds of megabyte Tif file.
The Adobe Photoshop smart object integration is now better than the integration into DXO Photolab.
I would be primarily interested in a Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and full Viveza integration.
DXO already owns the code and the integration with help from AI coding tools should not be a very expensive and long-term project. And i doubt it will slow Photolab down, like the new AI tools do.
I really would not compare filmpack to Silver Efex Pro. I bought fillmpack for its addional contrast sliders and luminosity masking.
It would drastically improve the finetuning options of Photolab, making it more competitive against lightroom, capture one and others.
I have been using PL+FP+VP since PL1 and have never, ever found a use for any of the Nik Collection. The only time I create a TIFF is for final export for printing.
As for SFX, I have never found anything I can’t do, in B&W, from within PL+FP. The only possible use I can think of is if you rely heavily on presets for your inspiration instead of either using FP or your own imagination.
I would be happy if they enabled plugin functionality. In ON1 Photoraw I can call NIK and the edited file is returned as a new layer in ON1 Photoraw. Perfect integration as far as I am concerned.
And ON1 effects is fully integrated into their main program Photo RAW. ON1 effects are similar to some Nik tools like Color Efex Pro, but I like Nik tools better.
Today is BTW the last day to get ON1 effects 2025 free, in case you want compare them to Nik tools.
I always felt DXO Photolab really misses the fine-tuning Color Efex Pro and Viveza offer. It would make Photolab a real power house.
Now it’s better integrated into the competing Adobe LR/PS.